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BM 197 .W57 1924 c.1 


Wise, James Waterman, 1901- | 
Liberalizing liberal Judais 


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LIBERALIZING 
LIBERAL JUDAISM 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
NEW YORK « BOSTON + CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CO., LimITtED 
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LIBERALIZING 
LIBERAL JUDAISM 


BY 
JAMES WATERMAN WISE 


JQew Pork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1924, 


All rights reserved 


CopryricHt, 1924, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Set up and printed. 
Published September, 1924. 


Printed in the United States of America by 
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


TO 
MY MOTHER AND FATHER 
IN REVERENCE AND LOVE 


yeti 


‘a Weak ; 
hhh ae 





FOREWORD 


Liberal Judaism, for years a pariah, anathematized. 
by traditional Jewry, has in the last decades clothed 
itself in the vestments of religious respectability. It is. 
no longer thought of as a “Movement,” for a move- 
ment implies progress of one sort or another, and Lib- 
eral Judaism has ceased to advance. I do not imply 
that individuals within its ranks have abandoned their 
search for religious truth, but that it has definitely 
lost its character as an insurgent force, vitalized by 
the necessity of securing and justifying its own 
existence. 

The fate of all successful reform movements has 
overtaken Liberal Judaism. In its turn it has be- 
come an established religion. Those doctrines of the 
older Judaism which the founders rejected, trouble 
their successors no more, while the positive beliefs 
which these pioneers championed are become the very 
stuff of which Liberal Judaism is fashioned. 

Yet these beliefs and doctrines are no longer what 
they were. A change has taken place. When we say 
that the earth revolves about the sun, we state a com- 


monplace. Some centuries ago Galileo very nearly 
7 


8 FOREWORD 


died for saying the same thing. The truth is the same 
to-day as it was then. The difference lies in the psy- 
chology of the enunciator. Something very similar 
has happened in Liberal Judaism. The beliefs which 
were so vital to Einhorn and Hirsch and Wise that 
they found it necessary to expatriate themselves in 
order to establish them, we breathe cheaply in the 
common air. They are no longer a driving power; 
they have lost their edge. And beliefs without an 
edge cannot evoke that devotion which alone is able to 
give them life and meaning. 

Nor is this subjective criticism all. Liberal Juda- 
ism in itself is full of faults, faults to be found in 
doctrine and practice alike. And no sorrier comment 
could be made on the intelligence of Liberal Jews 
than that they are content with the achievements, in- 
tellectual and spiritual, of the forties and fifties and 
sixties of the nineteenth century. 

The last word in Judaism has not been said. There 
are no “last words” in the realm of the spirit. Our 
faith must be re-examined. Reverently and with love 
we must search into the truths of our fathers, but re- 
solved that where they are for us no-truths, we must 
deny them; where they are half-truths, we must alter 
them; and where ourselves can catch a glimpse of yet 
unseen truths we must not fail to follow the gleam. 

A wise teacher of another faith has said that re- 
ligion lives through the death of religions. I believe 


FOREWORD 9 


that he is right, and that the end of our searchings and 
strivings will be not a lesser but a greater faith, which 
in its turn will call forth, as did the faith of our 
fathers, loyalty and love and devotion. 


J. W. W. 
Cambridge, England. 


March, 1924. 


P 
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CONTENTS 


TOREWORD Microtek alice tla ees 7 
CHAPTER 

DRELINDAMENTALS( 0ic5) eeniiigh oh ah desta yitie tia RR od itiaiGd 
PEPBRWELY CLUDATSM Cie leer et Cea ACM MMe abhi til ase 
Lie WHAT LIBERAL JUDAISM 1S...) cy Ua el ee bo 
UV Se HE QUESTION, OF ATTITUDES 35. Cu eh oser ici Go 
V. Wuat or “THe Mission oF ISRAEL”? . . . 58 
VI. Reticious EpucaTIoNn For JEWIsH CHILDREN . 74 


PLU NCERMR MARRIAGE hfe Url unig ied iaehls) diets al sua hee th ao 
VIN. THe Puace or Jesus 1n Mopern Jupaism. . 112 
IX. Tue Function or tHe Munistry . . . . 135 
ROSTSCRIPT (iti: red opal euutnres ty 9). | reek ltenht se Rane a 





LIBERALIZING 
LIBERAL JUDAISM 





LIBERALIZING 
LIBERAL JUDAISM 


CHAPTER I 
FUNDAMENTALS 


Judaism is of course a religion. But as a neces- 
sary corollary the fact must be added that it is the 
religion of a particular group of people. There is 
more than the grammatical criticism to be made of 
the statement oft repeated by Jews, “We are a re- 
ligion, not a race.” Judaism is a religion, but beyond 
Judaism there is the fact of Jews and Jewishness. 
Nor does this fact depend upon the assertion or denial 
of belief in a monotheistic creed. 

True it is that Jews do not form a race or nation 
in the literal or scientific use of those terms. But 
on the other hand the unique bond between them can- 
not be explained, or explained away, as a purely re- 
ligious one. Many great men are Jews in the eyes 
of the world as in the eyes of their fellow-Jews, 
although their theological and religious beliefs have 
no affinity with the principles of Judaism. Neither 
adherence to nor neglect of Judaism can alter the 

15 


16 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


conception in the mind of others that they are Jews.” 

If then his religion is not the only, nor even the 
chief, sign and token of the Jew, the question arises as 
to what is that peculiar allocative characteristic of 
certain people, which I have chosen to call their Jew- 
ishness. Definitions and descriptions are beyond num- 
ber, but the essence of it is so simple that it seems 
to have escaped detection. Does it not lie in this? 
Jews are primarily the descendants of believers in 
Judaism, and their Jewishness consists of the quali- 
ties, customs, beliefs and mannerisms which in greater 
or less degree and in common with other Jews, they 
have inherited.” ? How they will view their Jewish- 
ness,—whether it will seem a curse and a disability, 
or a privilege and a blessing, is a matter for indi- 
vidual decision; as is the acceptance or rejection of 
Judaism the religion. The unalterable fact, the fact 
of their Jewishness, remains in any case. Like mind 
and matter it can neither be created nor destroyed! ® 


* Examples may be found in all lands and times, and I mention 
but a few outstanding names. Spinoza, Heine, Disraeli, and 
Bergson, are figures centuries apart in time, and are claimed by 
four different lands. And all four are known throughout the 
world as Jews despite complete disassociation from the faith 
of Judaism. 

* This definition is not meant to be a permanent one. A hun- 
dred years ago it would have had little meaning. A hundred 
years hence it may have even less. All the characteristics which 
mark the Jew to-day may in the course of time disappear and 
he may once again be known only as the adherent of a certain 
faith. But whether this event occur or not, (and in Western 
Europe and America it is not at all unlikely that it will) the 
definition given above seems to me true at the present time. 

*In pointing out the fact of Jewishness as distinct from the 
belief in Judaism I do not refer to Political Zionism or the 
philosophy underlying it. Zionism accepts the fact of Jewish- 


FUNDAMENTALS 17 


My subject is however Judaism the religion, and 
if it be necessary to define what Judaism is and is 
not, it is even more important to explain just what I 
mean when I use the term religion. Many writers 
have pointed out in recent years the utter futility of 
attempting any brief comprehensive description of 
the phenomena of religion. They have shown that its 
manifestations are infinite, and infinitely varying, 
and I shall not defend my failure to essay a defini- 
tion. James in his “Varieties of Religious Expe- 
rience,” * dealing with this problem of definition, 
says: “The field of religion being as wide as this, it 
is manifestly impossible that I should pretend to 
cover it. My lectures must be limited to a fraction 
of the subject—yet this need not prevent me from 
taking my own narrow view of what religion shall 
consist in for the purpose of these lectures, or out of 
the many meanings of the word, from choosing the 
one meaning in which I wish to interest you particu- 
larly, and proclaiming arbitrarily that when I say 
‘religion’ I mean that.” 

Religion, however as a problem for objective study 
and scientific research, and as such requiring a 
“meaning” does not concern us here. But as a vital 


ness and advances from that position to the belief that the duty 
of Jewry is to preserve and to develop, in Palestine at all events, 
its inherited national and racial characteristics. Whether such 
an inference is justified or not, and what the implications of this 
position are, do not affect this problem. Here I am dealing only 
with the fact from which they have arisen. 

4Page 28 “Varieties of Religious Experience.” (The Italics are 
James’.) 


18 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


force, as a living agent affecting the lives of those who 
touch and are touched by it, with this sort of religion 
we have to do. And religion in this form is not so 
much concerned with an academic definition, as with 
a statement of its aim or purpose. I shall not, there- 
fore, even choose a ‘meaning.’ Instead I lay down 
as my basic principle, arbitrarily chosen, that, what- 
ever its meaning or definition may be, the purpose of 
religion is: To help man to live well. This I term 
the fundamental purpose of religion. 

It is necessary to point out two consequences, im- 
mediately resultant from this conception, for they 
directly affect the problems to be discussed. (1) If 
the purpose of religion be to help man to live well, 
(and by the word well I refer here to the things of 
the spirit as distinct from, perhaps opposed to, the 
things of the material world), it follows that religion 
must include far more than any doctrinal definition 
would allow. It must recognize that influences, other 
than itself, in the development of character, are on a 
parity with it in aim, and often above it in achieve- 
ment. Education of the right kind, a home which 
seeks to evoke the best from its members, and friend- 
ships which are definitely formed and firmly kept on 
a spiritual level, all these have a part in teaching 
man to live well. 

While it is possible arbitrarily to circumscribe 
religion in order to define it as distinct from the other 
influences which go to make up character, such de- 
limitation ought not to be made. Intolerable to those 


FUNDAMENTALS 19 


who feel that religion might be a vital force is the 
chasm, grown almost so great as to be unbridgeable, 
between faith and life. The two must be brought 
together, welded into one. It is as though religion 
had so long been placed in a compartment, closed and 
sealed against what have been considered the cor- 
roding influences of life and experience, that it has 
withered and shrunk in its seclusion, through lack 
of the very contacts, which, it was feared, would de- 
stroy it. And the logical consequence of this method 
of preservation is now apparent. What it was sought 
to preserve has so dwindled in dignity, that it is but 
a shadow of its former greatness. The spirit has dis- 
appeared. And until the spirit return, the form and 
garb of it are less than nothing. 

Many remedies for this living death have been pre- 
scribed, but the only one that bids fair to be suc- 
cessful lies in interrelation, conscious and deter- 
mined, between religion and the other forces that 
affect human life. Religion must be made once 
more to relate itself vitally to life. Its “noli me 
tangere’ attitude must be abandoned. It must stand 
upon its own feet. It must make a place for itself. 
Religion must no longer be circumscribed or set 
apart, but must be included among (perhaps ulti- 
mately to include), all the influences which help men 
to live well. 

(2) From the statement of the purpose of religion 
made above, it follows that its aim must not be to per- 
petuate itself. It is needful to make mention of this, 


20 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


for established religion is too prone to assume that 
its customs and teachings are necessarily good and 
valid, and that one of its highest functions is to pre- 
serve itself unaltered. As a result of this attitude 
established religion looks with pious horror on any 
tendency toward change as affecting itself. The ar- 
gument (usually left unspoken) for any established 
religion is that its own form embodies high moral 
teaching, and presents a way of life that is good. It 
teaches truths that have been tested by time. It is the 
faith by which have been lived countless noble lives. 
It is founded not on dogma but on experience, and 
the task of the established religion is to pass on its 
body of religious truths, unchanged, in order that 
future generations may in their turn rejoice in and 
profit by them. 

The conclusion is plausible enough but the argu- 
ment from which it is derived fails to consider two 
fundamental facts. The first is a fact of history, the 
second of psychology. The first deals with the 
founding of every powerful established religion, the 
second with its future. Yet in reality, the two facts 
are one. 

The history of every established faith was orig- 
inally the history of one great soul, or of a small 
company of souls, dissatisfied with the established 
religion of their own day. This dissatisfaction 
coupled with spiritual insight and resistless deter- 
mination supplied the impetus to overthrow the old 
and to attempt to bring a better order in its place. 


FUNDAMENTALS 21 


Now established religions of our own day do not 
seek to minimize these facts. They stress them. The 
great advance, the new light, as seen by the founders 
of their religion, is made much of. ‘The established 
religion is admittedly the result of religious progress. 
But these very religions repudiate the principle of 
progress when it affects themselves. The advance on 
which they are based is conceived by them to be the 
last advance. The word of truth which they preach is 
preached as the last word in truth! And here we 
meet the second fact, the psychological factor, which 
established religion fails to take into account. 

Just as in the days of Hebrew prophecy, just as at 
the beginning of the Christian era, just as during the 
Reformation of the sixteenth century, there are those 
today who are dissatisfied with what religion is. They 
see errors and feel incompleteness in the teachings 
of established religions quite as truly as did the 
founders of those religions in the faiths of their own 
day. The great advance which the founders made 
beyond the beliefs and practises of bygone eras no 
longer satisfies these men.® They perceive the good 
in the faith of their day, but they see even more 
clearly that its good is not sufficient for them, will 
be even less sufficient for their children. And though 
they respect the work of the old masters in religion, 


5For one thing the advance seems to be in name only. It is 
adopted in creed but that is all. Belief and works are still dis- 
tinct and disparate. The question arises whether or not they 
can ever be made one, and whether the profound ethical insights 
of great religious teachers do not serve largely to make more 
marked in most men the difference between conduct and creed. 


22 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


they feel even more strongly that “God fulfills him- 
self in many ways, lest one good custom should cor- 
rupt the world.” The spirit still seems to them to 
be imprisoned by the letter, and they hold it their 
highest duty to liberate the spirit though they destroy 
the walls that shut it in. Such men become in name 
rebels and betrayers of their fathers’ faiths, but in 
fact they are the true descendants,—the children of 
the spirit,—of the great teachers whose work as it 
now stands they would seem to destroy. 

I have said that the purpose of religion is to help 
man to live well, and religion with such an aim must 
take account of and give due recognition to those who 
are dissatisfied with what it advocates. Dissatisfac- 
tion when turned to account is a powerful force in 
character building. Spiritual striving is always en- 
nobling. Religion must not see in these things dan- 
gers to be avoided, but allies to be welcomed. They 
are the vital part, the inward part of faith. Religion 
ignores them to its peril. And by the effort to per- 
petuate itself, to keep itself unchanged, religion does 
ignore them. 

When religion discovers that it is out of harmony 
with the strivings of the spirit, that it no longer satis- 
fies the spiritual longings of men, it is time for re- 
ligion to question itself. Honest self-examination 
must be the first step, and if such examination reveal 
weakness and failure, religion must be brave enough 
to admit them and big enough to seek to remedy 
them. ‘The attitude to be assumed must be one of 


FUNDAMENTALS 23 


self-forgetfulness. Such an attitude, firmly main- 
tained, will make impossible the attempts at self- 
perpetuation which serve only to bring into merited 
disrepute that which it is sought to glorify. A re- 
ligion, the purpose of which is to help man to live 
well, cannot and must not itself remain unchanged, 
when change is needed. 

Summing up those concepts which I hold to be 
fundamental for the purpose of this enquiry, and 
which have been dealt with in this chapter, it appears 
that Judaism is a religion, the religion of a particular 
group of people; that the purpose of religion is to 
help man to live well; that to achieve this end re- 
ligion must consciously seek to relate itself to all of 
life; that it is inconsistent for religion to aim at self- 
preservation, and that if occasion arise it must be 
prepared to lose itself in order to find itself more 


fully. 


CHAPTER II 
WHY JUDAISM? 


The answer to the question “Why Judaism?” is 
neither simple nor self-apparent. To say that it is 
the duty of Jews to preserve their religion is not 
enough. Judaism for its own sake is not enough. 
Nor is the argument valid that those who are born 
Jews owe allegiance only for that reason to Judaism. 
They do not. Religion is a personal matter—the rela- 
tion of the individual to whatever he conceives to be 
ennobling, and no religion has a claim on any indi- 
vidual purely because of circumstances of birth, of 
tradition or of environment. Only insofar as a 
religion is spiritually compelling may it rightfully 
hope to enlist the loyalty of the individual. 

The preservation of the religion of the Jew for 
its own sake cannot then answer the question “Why 
Judaism?”. But the very fact of its inadequacy to 

*This religious philosophy is directly opposed to that which 
insists that Judaism for its own sake is worth serving and say- 
ing, and that it is the first duty of the Jew to preserve it for 
the good of all Jews. Such a position places the Jew as Jew 
first and as individual afterwards. I place the individual as 
individual first and as Jew afterwards, contending that it is 
impossible to speak of any duty which the Jew owes to Judaism, 


except that feeling of duty which comes as an inevitable result 
of the love of the individual Jew for his religion. 


24 


WHY JUDAISM? 25 


do so suggests the province in which the answer, if 
answer there be, must be sought. It is in the province 
of the individual. The individual supplies the only 
criterion by which the question “Why Judaism?” 
can be answered. Rephrasing the question, then, 
I would ask: Is Judaism worth while, or worthful ? 
enough for the individual to will to make it a vital 
part of his life? Can it satisfy the spiritual needs 
of the individual? Can it help him to attain the 
end of living well? ° 

I have spoken of the individual so far without 
qualifications but it must be clear that I do not mean 
all individuals or even most individuals. We shall 
consider later whether Judaism ever can appeal to the 
world in general, whether it is likely ever to be ac- 
cepted by the world at large. But in speaking of 
individuals here I am speaking of those individuals 
who will have Judaism presented to them as the 
logical religion for them to choose, in other words, 
descendants of believers in Judaism. And to qualify 
the term individual still further, I am considering 


21 use “Worth” in its spiritual sense; that is worthful which 
contributes to the upbuilding of character, to the strengthening 
of the moral fibre; the things which delight without making 
demands upon us being often of less worth than the things which 
exact and call forth service and sacrifice. 

* As the purpose of this book is to examine into what Judaism 
is or may become, it might be objected that this question is out of 
place here and should be reserved until the end. My answer is 
that the present question does not deal with the ultimate worth 
of Judaism but rather with its prima facie value. Is there enough 
of spiritual value in Judaism as it first comes into the horizon of 
the individual to make it worth his while to accept it even pro- 
visionally ? 


26 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


primarily Jews who dwell in Western Europe or 
America, and of such Jews only those who are so far 
removed from rigid orthodoxy that the choice between 
Judaism and other religions stands as a genuine and 
vital option for them. With unquestioning Orthodox 
Judaism I cannot deal here. 

The problem with which I shall deal is the prob- 
lem of the individual of Jewish parentage, living in 
a land in which he faces the same duties and enjoys 
the same privileges as all other citizens. In such a 
land he is in continual contact with non-Jews, he 
comes to know externally at least their religious life 
and customs. He sees that there are good and true, 
as well as bad, persons adhering to faiths different 
from his own. Those faiths may even, when he comes 
to know them, appeal to him strongly, and seem to 
him to contain many elements of worth which his own 
faith, as he knows it, has never shown him. 

Yet one must not imagine that the problem of such 
an individual is as simple as an intellectual choice 
between two or more forms of faith. Although I 
have spoken of the civic equality which Jews enjoy in 
certain lands, it would be folly to ignore the fact that 
even in these lands the Jew is marked off in greater 
or in less degree, but always to some degree, from his 
non-Jewish neighbor. The habit of twenty centuries 
is not overcome in a generation! Where the Jew is 
not met with prejudice and contempt and hostility, 
where these cruder forms of discrimination have 
vanished, there still remains that sense of difference, 


WHY JUDAISM? Xt 


of fundamental unlikeness of background and tradi- 
tion, which is only in rarest instances overcome. And 
this feeling of difference at all events the individual 
Jew must be prepared to meet. 

This is the individual whose problem must be 
considered.* How can his spiritual nature best be 
developed? Can the religion of Judaism satisfy his 
spiritual needs? Can it be of real service to him in 
teaching him how to face life? Or will he be 
better served by dissociation from the faith of his 
fathers? 

It is at this point that the gravest objection to Juda- 
ism and especially to Liberal Judaism appears. It 
is the implicit objection of such faiths as Theosophy 
and such groups as that of the Ethical Culture Move- 
ment. And much of.their objection is valid. Let us 
examine it. KEclecticism, as represented by the groups 
I have mentioned and by others, offers itself as the 
logical outcome of liberalism in religion.’ If, so its 
argument runs, all religions are agreed that the even- 
tual brotherhood of man is desirable and that the end 
to be sought is a religiously undifferentiated com- 

‘Although the number of individuals to be considered has by 
these qualifications been greatly reduced, it must not be imagined 
that that number is a small one. In the United States practically 
all the descendants of German Jews and ever increasing numbers 
of East Kuropean Jewry come within this category. And while 
the number is less in Western European lands it is nevertheless 
in proportion to the number of Jewish inhabitants. 

°In designating these religious groups as eclectic I do not imply 
that that is their only or their chief characteristic. It is not. But 
it is the one which stands opposed to the theory of the survival of 


special religious groups, whether Jewish, Christian or of any other 
kind. 


28 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


munity of spirits, is it not the duty of those who no 
longer believe that right living and salvation are a 
matter of church or creed, boldly to abandon their 
various little ‘‘isms’’? Is it not their duty to take the 
best from each, and to seek and find religious life 
in the service of the good, in ethical development 
(both of themselves and others), and in spiritual 
achievement? 

Such an appeal is not lightly to be ignored, and 
out of hand attempts at refutation of the philosophy 
behind it are not likely to prosper. Nor do they 
serve any worthwhile purpose. Let us face the fact 
frankly; Eclecticism in religion is appealing and es- 
pecially to Jews. The very sweep of its universalism, 
similar, it is true, to the universalism preached in the 
Old and New Testaments, but made a more vital and 
central teaching, touches responsive chords in the 
hearts of many Jews. To them this form of religion 
suffices. It answers their spiritual needs. It fulfills 
the purpose of religion; it helps them to live well. 

And because of the attraction of these faiths (the 
more attractive because there is absent in regard to 
them the ingrained antagonism of the Jew to the ac- 
ceptance of Christianity), there are “lost” to Judaism 
goodly numbers. I put the word “lost” in quotation 
marks for it is the common term, but in truth it ex- 
presses ill what has occurred. We have seen that a 
religion has no claim to survival for its own sake. 
And if the descendants of Jews can truly find the 
life of the spirit through a faith other than that of 


WHY JUDAISM? 29 


Judaism, and if they feel more deeply compelled to 
grasp the new faith than to cling to the old, I count 
them well lost. Only the event can show how much 
of an impression these faiths will make upon the 
numbers of those who might otherwise accept Judaism. 
But be it great or small we shall not fear the event.® 

I have said that some Jews are deeply moved by 
the appeal of such groups, but it must be made equally 
clear that their numbers are negligible (at present at 
all events). The great problem remains, the problem 
of the mass of Jewish individuals. What of their 
spiritual life? How shall they learn to live well? 
Shall they drift along waiting for some religion to 
claim them as its own, or, as is more probable, shall 
they lose all religious interest and aim? 

It is not necessary to spend more than a passing 
paragraph on the point of view that the individual 
needs no religion, that his natural goodness and in- 
nate sense of right will suffice him as far as his 
spiritual education is concerned; and that all re- 
ligions are but gaudy trappings which show off to 
poor advantage that which they seek to beautify. 
This theory is far less common to-day than it has 
been in the past. Were the facts on which it is 
based true, the conclusions would indeed make it 
difficult to defend religion from the point of view 


°The criticism has been made, and justly, that ethical philos- 
ophies and eclectic morality do not appeal to the mass of man- 
kind. They require too much intellection, and are too neutral and 
abstract to grip thesouls of the many. And they lack the warmth, 
the impulsiveness of religions like Judaism and Christianity. 


30  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


of its value for the individual. But history and 
psychology and the science of education all show it 
to be false. What we call the ethical attitude and 
the spiritual point of view we now know to be no in- 
alienable possession of every individual. These are 
the hard-won achievements of centuries of effort, and 
must be won afresh by each generation. They are 
no more to be looked for as a matter of course in 
the individual, than a natural appreciation of the 
best in music or art or literature can be expected 
without training in those fields. Even though cer- 
tain negative attitudes as regards wrong doing may, 
by contact with the world, be forced upon the in- 
dividual, yet the knowledge of how to live well, the 
spiritual point of view, must be as truly inculcated in 
the individual as any other branch of education. And 
this, the most important branch of all, is the province 
of religion. 

It is a matter of record that the moral, the ethical, 
the spiritual have all been inextricably interwoven 
with the religious in the history of the life of man. I 
do not imply that they have advanced pari passu. At 
times certainly they have been bitterly opposed to 
each other. But the strife has always been internal. 
They have parted company in one form, only to be 
more firmly reunited in another. And while the life 
of the spirit and religion are by no means inter- 
changeable terms, we nearly always find the most 
perfect examples of the one closely connected with 
the other. For religion sets out to enhance the spir- 


WHY JUDAISM? 31 


itual, while the spiritual on its side seems to find ulti- 
mate satisfaction in one form or another of the 
religious. 

In the case of most individuals the knowledge of 
how to live well, when attained, is in one way or 
another the outcome of religious training. It is 
the religious side of education that stresses right 
living. And though there are countless men and 
women who have learned to live well quite unaided 
by religion in any form, yet the vast majority of noble 
lives have been and are being influenced by the 
religious spirit. 

Thus the answer to the problem I have presented, 
the problem of the Jew in relation to the life of the 
spirit, is to be found in his religion. Jews just as 
all other individuals must get their first spiritual in- 
struction, the rough draft of their life’s plan, from 
religion. They may fill in the details as they will, 
and bring added adornments from whatever place 
they choose, and so they may erect a lovely structure. 
But first of all come foundations, and foundations 
which are principles they will find in the teachings 
of religion. 

Here also lies the answer to the question, “Why 
Judaism?” For religion to be foundational must be 
rooted in the depths of the consciousness of the in- 
dividual. It must be one of those impressions which 
through primacy and vividness become an integral 
part of the individual’s being. Thus only Judaism 
can answer these basic religious needs of him who is 


32 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


born a Jew. Only Judaism can furnish him with a 
religious background. Only in Judaism can the roots 
of his spiritual consciousness find soil which may be 
fruitful. And this is inevitable because in the begin- 
ning at all events it is only to the religion of Judaism 
that the Jew has access. 

I shall consider later whether Judaism offers a 
complete education of the spirit, whether it does or 
should satisfy ultimate spiritual longings. But what 
is of vital importance, what cannot be emphasized too 
strongly, is that the Jew at the outset of his life (or 
if his spiritual development be delayed beyond the 
years of childhood, at the outset of his spiritual 
career), needs as an individual, needs terribly, the all- 
underlying moral strength which he can get, and can 
only get from Judaism. It matters not what the end 
of that spiritual career. It may be the complete 
abandonment of the beliefs with which he set out. 
It may be that experience will show him that through 
those beliefs there is made possible the fullest, the 
most perfect and satisfying way of life. But no mat- 
ter what be the final judgment, the point of departure 
must be Judaism. Judaism, at the outset at all 
events, is for the Jew the sine qua non of the spiritual 


life. 


CHAPTER III 
WHAT LIBERAL JUDAISM IS 


We have seen that individuals of Jewish antece- 
dents, born or living in Western lands, need Judaism 
to furnish at least the foundations of their spiritual 
growth. Judaism on its side derives its raison d étre, 
at least in respect to these individuals, from the value 
which it possesses for them. Jews need Judaism it is 
true, but Judaism must be able to satisfy their needs. 
The question then to be answered by those interested 
in the life of Jews living in Western lands, is whether 
or not Judaism as presented to such individuals is 
performing its essential function. Is it helping them 
to live well? And if not, why not? 

In speaking of Judaism as it is presented to Jews 
living in Western lands, I am referring to Liberal, or 
as it is sometimes called, Reform Judaism. For it is 
Liberal Judaism with which they come into contact, 
which for the most part it is expected they will pro- 
fess. And by great numbers of such Jews it has been 
accepted and is being observed. Were this the whole 
story there would be little need to continue this book, 
save perhaps as an exposition of the present prin- 
ciples of Liberal Judaism. But this is not the whole 


story. 
33 


34 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


Liberal Judaism does appeal to many “emanci- 
pated” Jews. But there are many, many more, whom 
it fails completely to interest or to hold. Increasing 
indifference on the part of Jews and especially of 
young Jews * is incessantly complained of by Liberal 
Jewish teachers and preachers. And the failure of 
Liberal Judaism to interest them is, for the most part, 
unhesitatingly laid at the door of these young Jews 
or of their parents. In reality, however, the failure 
cannot be ascribed to them but arises from either one 
or the other of two quite different causes. 

Either (1) Liberal Judaism has no access to these 
young people, has no avenue by which it can approach 
them, and is therefore unable to present itself to their 
notice or (2) where Liberal Judaism has been pre- 
sented to them and has failed to hold them, only itself 
is to blame. 


“When Duty whispers low, ‘Thou must,’ 
The youth replies, ‘I can.’ ” 


The poet’s insight was sound. The eternal readiness 
to respond to a summons which is compelling is an 
unchanging characteristic of youth. But the sum- 
mons must be compelling. The duty must make itself 
heard and felt. If it does not there is little good 


*The failure to gain and hold the interest of young Jews, and 
the necessity for averting such failure in the future, were key- 
notes of the recent Golden Jubilee convention of the Union of 
American Hebrew Congregations, held in New York during the 
winter of 1923. Speaker after speaker gave evidence of the gray- 
ity of the situation, and the main addresses of the occasion were 
devoted to discussions of the problem and suggestions as to how 
to meet it. For further reference see “Report on the Golden 
Jubilee Convention of the U. A. H. C.” 


WHAT LIBERAL JUDAISM IS 30 


to be gained by cavilling at the unresponsiveness of 
youth, or at the evil of the times. The heart of youth 
is ever ready. And religion which fails to evoke a 
response from youth does ill to blame aught but itself 
for the failure. In all probability it is a no-religion. 

With the problem of Liberal Judaism and those 
Jews to whom because of external causes it has not 
been able to present itself, I shall not deal. The prob- 
lem with which I shall deal is the problem of Liberal 
Judaism and those Jews to whom it has been offered, 
but in vain. Why is Liberal Judaism not a compelling 
faith to these many Jews? What has it lost that is of 
value, that it no longer grips men? What has been 
added to it that should not have been added? 

Thus the matter of responsibility is shifted, as in 
the main it must be, from a consideration of the faults 
and virtues of the individual to a consideration of 
the faults and virtues of the religion. The individual 
is the constant factor; the religion is the variable. 
And rightly to adjust the relation of the individual 
to his religion, when they appear to be out of harmony 
with each other, it is necessary to inquire how far 
the variable must be changed. This can be done in 
the case of Liberal Judaism only by a critical examin- 
ation into its present principles and into the practises 
or lack of practise to which they give rise. And I 
shall attempt to state just what Liberal Judaism is 
and teaches at the present time, and then to inquire 
into the validity and serviceableness of its character 
and teachings. 


36 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


Liberal Judaism first arose as a protest against 
religion, and more particularly Judaism, conceived 
of as law. Its aim was the enfranchisement of the 
spirit from those customs and traditions of Rabbinic 
or Orthodox Judaism which had ceased to have mean- 
ing and purpose. Its leaders were for the most part 
as Dr. Israel Abrahams puts it, “the intellectually 
and socially ‘emancipated’ ”’* and the real struggle 
for reform came about because of their belief, first 
championed by Abraham Geiger, that thought and 
religion must be “‘syncretized, not put into separate 
compartments.” I shall not give the history of this 
struggle, nor trace the evolution of the religious phi- 
losophy of Liberal Judaism, a philosophy which took 
definite form during the last decades of the nineteenth 
century. This evolution is as noble a chapter as any 
that the history of religious development affords, 
being the record of the struggles of men utterly de- 
voted to Judaism, yet firmly determined to place it in 
a position in which it could command the intellectual 
respect as well as the purely emotional devotion of its 
adherents. 

But it is the result, the final stage in this evolu- 
tion, with which I am here concerned. And the fact 
that there was a final stage must be emphasized. Lib- 
eral Judaism gradually developed a number of dis- 
tinct and separate dogmas of its own. It came in 
time, both in its own eyes and in the eyes of Ortho- 


Si Se ea on Liberal Judaism, Encyclopedia of Religion and 
‘thics. 


WHAT LIBERAL JUDAISM IS vt 


dox Judaism and of the world, to be thought of as the 
expression of a definite religious point of view.* What 
was for years a chaos of varying opinions and doc- 
trines held by different and differing Liberal Jews, 
emerged before the end of the nineteenth century into 
an orderly and clearly connected whole. The stage 
of controversy over what the beliefs and teachings of 
Liberal Judaism were came to an end. ‘The era of 
common creed, varied only in the details of expound- 
ing it, set in. It is necessary therefore to turn to 
Liberal Judaism, or to the redaction of it accepted 
by almost all Liberal Jews, and to state its beliefs, 
its teachings, and its religious philosophy. 

The positive affirmations of Liberal Judaism arise, 
as is not unnatural, out of its denial of the funda- 
mental conception of Rabbinic Judaism, the concep- 
tion of religion, interpreted as law. Rabbinic 
Judaism holds that observance of the law, written 
and oral, beginning with every detail of the Mosaic 
code, and ending with the precepts of the final au- 
thoritative compilation known as the “Shulchan 
Aruch” is the first duty and privilege of every Jew. 
It draws no distinction between the moral and the cere- 
monial command. It considers them, in theory at 
least, of equal importance. Directly opposed to this 
position is that of Liberal Judaism which holds that 
the ceremonial and moral laws are not of equal im- 


*This viewpoint is perhaps most clearly and succinctly set 
forth in what is known as the Pittsburgh Platform, a statement 
issued in that city in 1885 by a large and representative group 
of Reform Rabbis. 


38  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


portance. It insists that the moral law and only the 
moral law, whether found in the Bible or in post- 
Biblical literature, is eternally binding. The cere- 
monial law is to be observed and valued only insofar 
as it strengthens and supports the moral law. And 
when it ceases to do so, and becomes an obstruction 
and hindrance to the moral law, it is to be abandoned 
as a garment once serviceable and necessary, but 
like all garments made of perishable stuff. I can- 
not do better here than to quote from Dr. Philipson’s 
admirable work, “The Reform Movement in Juda- 
ism.” He says: * 

‘“‘No ceremonial law can be eternally binding. No 
generation can legislate for all future ages. Man- 
kind grows. The Biblical books and the Talmudical 
collections, when approached in this spirit, yield 
wonderful results. The stream of change and devel- 
opment is perceptible throughout. The universal 
commands implanted in the heart of man, and de- 
pendent on neither time nor place, are the essentials 
which never change, as Abraham Ibn Ezra puts it; 
the special laws, however, which arise from temporary 
and local conditions, are not written indelibly in 
the eternal scheme of things. This test reform Juda- 
ism applies to the traditions, and in all its develop- 
ment this has been the guiding principle. Not that 
Reform Judaism repudiates tradition or has broken 
with Jewish development as is often charged erro- 


‘The Reform Movement in Judaism” by David Philipson 
(1907), pp. 6-7. 


WHAT LIBERAL JUDAISM IS 39 


neously; it lays as great stress upon the principle of 
tradition as does Rabbinical Judaism, but it discrim- 
inates between separate traditions as these have be- 
come actualized in forms, ceremonies, customs and 
beliefs, accepting or rejecting them in accordance 
with the modern religious need and outlook, while 
Rabbinical Judaism makes no such discrimination. 
In a word, Reform Judaism differentiates between 
tradition and the traditions; it considers itself, too, a 
link in the chain of Jewish tradition. . . .” 

But while the central point of Liberal Judaism is 
its championing of the religion of the spirit as dis- 
tinct from, and even opposed to, that of the letter, 
the position which it took in regard to certain tradi- 
tional beliefs and dogmas of Judaism is perhaps 
even more original. It is well to note that its atti- 
tude toward them is made possible only because of 
its fundamental viewpoint that Judaism is a re- 
ligion unchanging in basic moral principles, but 
varying from age to age in the practises to which it 
adheres. Holding this view Liberal Judaism ‘re- 
verses almost entirely the position of Rabbinic Juda- 
ism in regard to such important matters as: (1) The 
Messianic Nationalism of Judaism, to use the phrase 
of Emil Hirsch, the conception of Israel as a nation, 
and the expectation of its return to Palestine. (2) The 
supposed mission of Israel. (3) The advent of a 
personal Messiah. (4) The Resurrection of the 
Body. (5) The relative importance of the Mosaic 
and the prophetic portions of the Bible. 


40  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


I refer again to Dr. Philipson’s work.° “The 
burden of the thought of Rabbinical Judaism is na- 
tional. The hope expressed in the traditional prayer 
is that the Jews will return to Palestine, again be- 
come a nation under the rule of a scion of the house 
of David, reinstitute the sacrifices under the minis- 
tration of the descendants of Aaron, and worship 
in the temple rebuilt on the ruins of the temple of 
old. The Jews, in their dispersion among the na- 
tions are in a state of exile; their century-long suf- 
ferings are a punishment for the sins committed by 
the fathers while living in Palestine; when the meas- 
ure of the expiation will be full, the restoration will 
take place. Agains: this doctrine reform Judaism 
protests. It contends that the national existence of 
the Jews ceased when the Romans set the temple 
aflame and destroyed Jerusalem. The career in Pal- 
estine was but a preparation for Israel’s work in all 
portions of the world. As the early home of the 
faith, . . . Palestine is a precious memory of the 
past, but it is not a hope of the future. With the dis- 
persion of the Jews all over the world, the universal 
mission of Judaism began. The Jews are citizens and 
faithful sons of the lands of their birth or adoption. 
They are a religious community, not a nation.” 

In addition to its definite exposition of the doctrine 
of Liberal Judaism in regard to Palestine and the 
conception of Israel as a religious community, the 
passage quoted above alludes to the Messianic hope 


°“The Reform Movement in Judaism” (1907), pp. 7 and 8. 


WHAT LIBERAL JUDAISM IS Al 


and to the Mission of Israel. On these questions, too, 
Liberal Judaism has a distinct doctrine of its own. 
It rejects completely the teaching of the coming of 
a personal Messiah. His function in Jewish tradi- 
tion was to have been the redemption of all the Jews 
scattered throughout the world, and the effecting of 
a return to Palestine of all of them, there to estab- 
lish the Kingdom of God upon earth. 

The desirability as well as the likelihood of such 
an occurrence Liberal Judaism denies, and partly as 
the result of this denial, partly because of its objec- 
tion to the theory behind the conception, it rejects 
the doctrine of the coming of a Messiah. 

But though it foregoes the hope of a Messiah, Lib- 
eral Judaism offers in its place what it terms the 
Messianic hope for the final establishment of Truth, 
Justice and Peace among all men. In 1869 at the 
first important conference of Liberal Jews held in 
America it was laid down as fundamental that ““The 
Messianic aim of Israel is not the restoration of the 
Old Jewish state under a descendant of David, .. . 
but the union of all the children of God in the con- 
fession of the unity of God... .” 

From these newer conceptions of Israel as “‘re- 
ligious community” and not as nation, and of an 
approaching Messianic state of affairs, rather than 
a state, over the affairs of which a personal Messiah 
is to rule, arose this most important doctrine of Lib- 
eral Judaism, its doctrine of the mission of Israel. 
The unity of God, the prophetic ideal of Justice and 


42 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


Righteousness, the era of peace and good-will, these 
are the great teachings entrusted to Israel by God, 
who sought out and trained Israel that it in turn 
might carry His message to all the peoples of the 
world. This mission is not to be thought of so much 
as a privilege or a favor, as it is to be regarded as 
a duty and a responsibility. As Emil Hirsch put 
it: “Israel is itself the Messianic People, appointed 
to spread by its fortitude and loyalty the monotheistic 
truth over all the earth, to be an example of recti- 
tude toward all others.” ° 

And until its mission is accomplished, until the 
far-off divine event comes to pass, Israel is God’s 
witness upon earth. Mr. Claude Montefiore writes: 
“The word of the prophet, ‘Ye are my witnesses’ is 
still accepted and believed by us. Sometimes wit- 
nesses through silence, sometimes through speech and 
teaching, at all times witnesses by our lives and ex- 
perience, ‘we have to remain true to what we believe 
to be the ordinance and will of God.” * 

This belief in the all-importance of Israel’s mission 
conditions in its turn the point of view of Liberal 
Judaism concerning its practises and observances. 
Only those which are in keeping with the spirit of its 
nature and mission must be adhered to. Prayers for 
the reéstablishment of the sacrificial offerings are not 
in keeping with that spirit. They are abolished. Diet- 
ary laws are held to be no longer of any importance. 


* Article on Reform Judaism in the Jewish Encyclopedia. 
*“Outlines of Liberal Judaism,” 1912, p. 170, 


WHAT LIBERAL JUDAISM IS 43 


They are declared null and void. And whatever of 
tradition does harmonize with present day life and 
thought is to be impregnated with the relation which 
it bears not only to the past but to the future. All 
the festivals and observances of Liberal Judaism are 
closely bound up with its hope for the coming of the 
day when to the one God “every knee will bend and 
every tongue give homage. When all men shall rec- 
ognize that they are brethren, so that one in spirit 
and one in fellowship they may be forever united.” 
For to the furtherance of these ends Liberal Judaism 
is unequivocally committed. 

The only other important doctrine which Liberal 
Judaism holds is its assertion of the immortality of 
the soul. This in itself is not new to Judaism; it is 
an old belief; but it is particularly emphasized by 
Liberal Judaism because of its concomitant denial 
of the bodily resurrection. We find in Rabbinic 
Judaism the two doctrines held together. In accord- 
ance with the fundamental principles stated above, 
Liberal Judaism asserts its right and duty to empha- 
size the one, while abandoning the other. 

In concluding this rapid examination of the main 
principles of Liberal Judaism it is not amiss to state, 
as so many of its leaders have done, that it is in es- 
sence a return to prophetic Judaism—not to the letter 
but to the spirit of the Hebrew Prophets. Their uni- 
versalism, their love of justice, their insistence on 
the importance of ethical principles rather than out- 
ward forms of religion; all these teachings adapted 


44. LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


to the needs of the age Liberal Judaism has accepted. 
It is based, it is true, on the Mosaic law as found in 
part or in parts of the Pentateuch. But its surest 
sanction, the bulwark of its strength is its oneness with 
the teachings and with the spirit of the prophets. It 
is this Liberal Judaism which I now propose critically 
to examine. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE QUESTION OF ATTITUDE 


The beliefs and teachings of Liberal Judaism were 
briefly stated in the last chapter. No comment was 
there made, however, either on their validity or 
value; and no criticism either adverse or favorable 
was offered, except such criticism as was implicit 
in pointing out that for some reason or reasons this 
body of teaching no longer exerted as vital an influ- 
ence as once it did. 

Yet the fact that Liberal Judaism does not influ- 
ence men and women as it should do, furnishes the 
basis for this chapter, and indirectly for all the rest 
of this volume. If Liberal Judaism has been pre- 
sented to “emancipated” Jews and has failed to win 
devotion and loyalty from them to any considerable 
extent, it is necessary to inquire just where the trouble 
lies. An answer must be found to the question, What 
shall be presented to these Jews in the name of re- 
ligion? What is presented is Liberal Judaism. And 
in large degree Liberal Judaism has failed. What 
can be done to remedy that failure? 

What is needed and wanted by men and women 
to-day, particularly by younger men and women, is 

45 


46  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


aid in solving the many problems which life presents. 
What they desire is counsel, thoughtful counsel which 
will help them to solve, not the riddle of the uni- 
verse, but the problems great and small of their daily 
lives. First there is the problem of values. What 
are the things in life which are worth while? What 
is worth striving for, worth achieving, worth pos- 
sessing? What standards are to be followed or is 
standardlessness a perfectly justifiable way of life? 
What if anything can “impart to man’s fleeting days 
an abiding value?” Is there anything to which man 
can hold with certainty, and yet not blindly, and 
which will not in the end prove to be vanity of vani- 
ties? These are some among the problems of values. 

In the less philosophical matters of life men and 
women are perhaps even more in need of thoughtful 
aid. For in the province of action they are met with 
what seem to be even graver questions. What is to 
be the measure of their Jewishness, their humani- 
tarianism, their honesty? What is to be their atti- 
tude toward the very real problems which are met 
with constantly in the realms of business, of politics, 
of the home, in the relations between the sexes? 

Now these problems are the problems of religion. 
They are its reasons for existence, and most religions 
to-day realize and recognize this fact. Liberal Juda- 
ism is among them. It admits the existence of these 
problems and asserts its complete competency to meet 
with and to solve them. It finds however that its 
solutions are constantly rejected and its aid no longer 


THE QUESTION OF ATTITUDE 4.7 


sought. And it wonders what is the reason for its 
failure. 

Yet the reason ought to be very clear. The funda- 
mental attitude of Liberal Judaism is wrong.’ For 
Liberal Judaism like all religions is essentially an 
attitude of mind, not a body of teachings and beliefs. 
Teachings and beliefs are little more than the result, 
the outgrowth of the attitude which is taken. And 
I maintain that the attitude taken to-day by Liberal 
Judaism is in essence wrong! It is not this or that 
belief or teaching which is at fault. What is imper- 
atively necessary is a sweeping change in the whole 
conception of the purpose, the scope and the sanction 
of Liberal Judaism, a fundamental change in outlook 
and in attitude. And the task to which this book is 
bound, is to make clear in outline at least the direc- 
tion in which the change must be made and to sug- 
gest at least some ways in which that change may be 
effected. 

(1) The attitude of Liberal Judaism to-day (and 
when I refer to Liberal Judaism in this connection I 
refer to Liberal Jewish leaders, particularly Rabbis 
and teachers, for they determine its attitude), is first 
of all unconscionably dogmatic. Liberal Judaism 
arose, it is true, as a protest against certain kinds 


*It is perhaps only fair to add that the attitude of Liberal 
Judaism is not more wrong than that of Orthodox or even 
Liberal Christianity. In fact as far as its underlying attitude 
is concerned Liberal Judaism is identical with Christianity. The 
difference is in the minutiz, important though these may be, of 
dogma and ceremonial. 


48  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


of dogma, particularly ceremonial and _ liturgical 
dogma, bit it has retained as much theological 
dogma (though of a different kind in detail) as 
Orthodox Judaism ever had, and in addition it has 
emphasized what may be called ethical or spiritual 
dogma. 

By theological dogma I mean the ultra-positive 
assertion of the existence of God and of the immortal- 
ity of the soul. Liberal Judaism asserts these things 
as sure, teaches them as facts established beyond 
the question of a doubt. And this, it seems to me, is 
wrong. 

It would be the sheerest folly not to admit the 
intense, one might almost say universally intense 
human longing for some supernatural being, who 
may be worshipped, the longing which in the Judaism 
of old evolved into the belief in an entirely personal 
God. And perhaps with even more persistence the 
human mind and heart have longed and hoped and 
dreamed for assurance that there is to be a life after 
death, a life beyond life, the life eternal. These are 
matters which, whether we like it or not, concern 
every one of us. But they are not matters upon 
which we may speak with certainty, and surely not 
dogmatically. They are problems which affect every- 
one; they are not problems for which anyone or 
anything can provide a final solution. That is their 
majesty. That is the secret of the age-long hold that 
they have kept upon the minds and hearts of men. 
They are forever insoluble, forever inscrutable, and 


THE QUESTION OF ATTITUDE 49 


the finite minds of men will never fully comprehend 
them. 

Yet Liberal Judaism claims by the attitude which it 
assumes to have plucked out the heart of their mys- 
tery. Liberal Judaism tells us unhesitatingly that 
God does exist, that all depends on his existence, and 
that there is and must be a life after death. And then 
it wonders why it fails to hold the youth of to-day 
with its teachings! ? It does not understand that the 
very certainty of its attitude touching these certainly 
insoluble problems is enough to repel. Men and 
women in this age who think, know that these are 
things of which no man, nor age, nor faith can be sure. 
They realize that every individual, in every age who 
earnestly strives to understand, to know, concerning 
God and the future life must walk often if not always 
through the valley of the shadow of doubt, and they 
can neither respect nor honor a religion which as- 
serts dogmatically and finally conclusions concerning 
matters which they feel to be essentially and eter- 
nally problematic. 

So that when Liberal Judaism promulgates as 
dogmas its beliefs in the existence of God and in the 
immortality of the soul, it loses, as it deserves to lose, 
the confidence of those among its followers who 


?'With the attitude, the state of mind, and the teachings, of 
Liberal Judaism it is no wonder that it is rejected as unservice- 
able and worthless in solving such problems as those which have 
been indicated above. The wonder would be if it were widely 
accepted. The wonder, to my mind, at least, is that it is accepted 
even as much as it is! 


90 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


think for themselves. It is its attitude which is at 
fault; it is its outlook which must be changed. 

(2) Liberal Judaism is based on the past, the his- 
torical, the religious past of the Jewish people. This 
is inevitable. But that its attitude toward the present 
should be one of interpretation solely or even chiefly 
on the basis of past teachings is neither inevitable 
nor right nor wise. It must be made perfectly clear 
that I do not underestimate the tremendous value of 
the religious life of the past for the religious life of 
the present. But Liberal Judaism places a wrong em- 
phasis upon the relation of the present to the past, 
Assuming the validity of the ethical and spiritual 
teachings of the past, it invokes them as the answer 
to the questions of the present.® 

These teachings include what is best in the 
Bible, particularly the prophetic portions of the 
Bible, and in addition some later Jewish teachings, 
which are really amplifications and interpretations 
of the earlier point of view. This is the equipment 
with which for the most part Liberal Judaism offers 
to grapple with the problems which search men’s 
souls to-day. And talk as we may about eternal veri- 


* Basing itself on these teachings, it can, it is true, hardly do 
less. For if they are invalid or even insufficient the religious 
form which embodies them no longer deserves to live. The con- 
ception which Liberal Judaism seems to have of its mission, 
namely the administering and conserving of the truths of the 
past, might be likened to that of a group of trustees whose sole 
or chief business function was the administering and safeguarding 
of a large inheritance or trust fund. Should the securities of 
which the fund consisted prove to have deteriorated in value in 
the course of time, would it be honest for the trustees to act as 
if the securities had remained unchanged in value? 


THE QUESTION OF ATTITUDE ol 


ties and unchanging realities, this equipment, while 
not obsolete, is woefully insufficient. 

Just as men and women to-day refuse to accept dog- 
matic assertion of theological beliefs, so they refuse 
to accept dogmatic assertion of moral and ethical - 
teachings, especially when such teachings are based 
upon a past which is no longer thought of as the 
world’s golden age of the spirit. Men and women no 
longer believe that all virtue belongs to the past and 
that the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets are 
ultimate and all-inclusive. Most important of all, 
they deny that, however valid and true those insights 
may have been and still are, they are sufficient to meet 
the problems of the present. No past however glorious 
can serve as the key to the future. Present problems 
can only be intelligently solved by decisions fashioned 
under the impact of contemporaneous forces; they 
become compelling solutions, moreover, only through 
the consciousness that it is a present impact which 
produces them. Men and women no longer value 
a religious opinion because of historic primogeni- 
ture; on the contrary, they are inclined to look 
askance at that which offers itself as the solution of 
a problem, when its chief qualification for that 
function is its relation to the past. The problems of 
to-day must evoke the solutions of to-day. 

The indignant cry of Liberal Judaism will be 
raised. “What! Deny the past, cut ourselves off from 
all the age-long, painfully acquired, wisdom of tradi- 
tion? Lose the strength which has sustained us so 


52 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


long?” Certainly not! Cherish the past. Honor it. 
Reverence it. But not blindly! Use the teachings of 
the past to help solve the problems of the present, 
but do not offer them as the solution. ‘That is the 
mistake, that is the offense. For offering the past as 
the solution has only the unhappy effect of alienating 
from it the present which is prepared to recognize its 
virtues, but which will not close its eyes to its defects. 
The past may help solve the problems of the present; 
knowledge of it will undoubtedly throw much light 
upon them; but that is all. Nothing but the present 
light can meet the present’s need. Nothing but cur 
own solution is vital enough, whether it be correct 
enough or not, to satisfy ourselves. Again it is a 
question of attitude. 

(3) The third criticism to be made of Liberal 
Judaism arises indirectly from its attitude of seek- 
ing to interpret the present by means of the past. 
Such an attitude leads inevitably toward moral stand- 
ardization and ethical uniformity. And shaping its 
viewpoint concerning problems of the present accord- 
ing to the teachings of the past, Liberal Judaism 
naturally insists that this viewpoint be accepted, at 
least by all those who call themselves Liberal Jews. 

If the premise be allowed, one can hardly hope to 
object to the perfectly logical conclusion. If the 
teachings of the past rightly interpreted can solve 
the problems of the present, and if the vast majority 
of Liberal Jewish teachers interpret them similarly, 
it follows that the thing for all individual Jews to do 


THE QUESTION OF ATTITUDE o3 


is to attempt fully to grasp these interpretations and 
to apply them to their own lives. 

But the premise as I have said is false. Just as 
the past cannot furnish the key to the future, so the 
interpretations and judgments of one individual can- 
not and ought not be expected to furnish standards 
for other individuals. The problems of any given 
individual are different from the problems of any 
other individual, or of all individuals, and the aim 
of religion ought not be to provide one solution for 
many diverse problems, as Liberal Judaism too often 
does, but to stimulate each individual to think through 
and solve his own problems for himself. The func- 
tion of religion must not be to erect a universal stand- 
ard of action, but to present in clearest fashion 
various possibilities and viewpoints to the individual, 
with the purpose of aiding him as an individual in 
choosing those which will be in fullest accord with his 
own highest nature, and which therefore will be of 
greatest service to him in meeting his particular prob- 
lems. Thus religion is not to provide an example for 
the individual to copy but is to stimulate him, as a 
wise teacher of ethics has put it, to express his own 
nature in his own way. 

Summing up the present attitude of Liberal Juda- 
ism, it appears that it offers to the Jew a distinct teach- 
ing of its own. This teaching is based first on certain 
theological dogmas. These it holds to be eternally 
true and valid, and these condition its existence. Its 
teachings are further based on the religious ideals of 


54 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


the Hebrew prophets as reinterpreted in the light of 
the present, and from these teachings it constructs a 
way of life which it offers for acceptance to its ad- 
herents. This is the attitude of Liberal Judaism,— 
in each phase, it seems to me, a wrong attitude. And 
although in dealing with each phase of it, I have at- 
tempted to show why it is a wrong attitude, and in 
doing so have hinted at what the attitude ought in 
each case to be, it is not amiss here to make a more 
coherent and inclusive statement of the positive 
aspect of what I term the problem of attitude. 

Life presents itself as the problem of all problems 
to each individual. He must meet it, come to grips 
with it, seek to read its riddle. In this effort he will 
make use of any aid or instrument which lies at 
hand. Such aid is to be found for some individuals 
in the belief in and worship of a supreme being whom 
they designate as God. For others strength is derived 
from the belief in a life after death, a coming to- 
gether once more with the loved ones of earth. Still 
others find help in allying themselves to a past whether 
religious or political and in trying to live in com- 
munion with the spirit of that past. And finally large 
numbers of individuals gain strength to live their 
lives well from the wisdom and inspiration which 
great spiritual teachers have given to the world.* 


*It ought to be explained here that these different aids are 
not conceived of as being used, one by one individual, another 
by another individual. In almost all individuals there will be 
found a combination of all of them or most of them, though 
some one or two are likely to predominate in any one indi- 


THE QUESTION OF ATTITUDE DO 


These are some of the aids by which individuals 
seek to grapple with life. The business of religion 
is to help them. And the business of Liberal Judaism 
is to help those among them who are Jews. The 
question is how best to help. Dogmatism, whether 
theological or ethical, is not the answer, and having 
renounced that broad and easy path there must be 
found another way. The idea of God and of the 
immortality of the soul must not be preached as cer- 
tainties, but pondered over and dealt with as vital pos- 
sibilities. Liberal Jewish teachers, instead of giving 
more or less scholastic proofs of the truth of these 
things, must admit frankly that these are definitely 
personal matters, and offer only the testimony of their 
own personal experience for what it may be worth. 
And they must learn to invite, not to discountenance, 
serious disagreement. 

Instead of offering general solutions for present- 
day problems based on the teachings of the past, Lib- 
eral Judaism must make perfectly clear that the solu- 
tion of these problems can at best be only indirectly 
aided by the teachings of the past, that present prob- 
lems must be approached with what in any age may 
be called the impulse of the present point of view, 
and must be dealt with in a different manner by every 
individual. It must emphasize and not minimize the 


vidual’s experience. And it might be further stated that there 
are great numbers of individuals who do not find aid in any of 
these ways. Hither their training or their personal peculiarities 
may lead them to seek aid in entirely other and even unrelated 
fields. 


56 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


importance of diverse opinions, of differing points 
of view. 

Up to this point I have deal with the attitude of 
religion gua religion and I have purposely made no 
reference to what may be termed the distinctly Jew- 
ish elements of Liberal Judaism. How can they be 
retained or is there any need of retaining them if 
the attitude of religion is to be thus abruptly changed? 
The answer is almost the same as that given at the 
end of the chapter which dealt with the problem, 
“Why Judaism?” Judaism must serve as the founda- 
tion, the cornerstone of spiritual development. The 
individual Jew, to meet adequately the many prob- 
lems which life presents to him, must have a spir- 
itual background, and this background Judaism fur- 
nishes. His past, the belief of his fathers, was 
Judaism. It served them well, but his problems are 
not their problems and he must examine whether or 
not what was true for them remains true for him. 

Yet with Judaism he must commence. He must 
first of all learn what the teachings of his past and 
the history of his people were. For these will assist 
him in fashioning his own life whether he accept 
or reject them ultimately. Liberal Jewish teachers 
must present Judaism to the Jew as his spiritual her- 
itage. But they must not insist upon it as his final 
spiritual home. They must first instruct him con- 
cerning the customs, beliefs, traditions of the past 
and then with him examine into their value and truth. 

In this examination’ Liberal Judaism must be 


THE QUESTION OF ATTITUDE od 


strong and fearless, applying to the problems with 
which Judaism attempts to deal any help which it 
may find outside its own particular sphere. Socrates, 
Jesus, Emerson, Kant, the spirit and the word of any 
or all of these as well as of countless other teachers, 
must be invoked by Liberal Judaism when the need 
arises, to complete its teachings, perhaps at times, 
even to supersede them. And if the objection be 
raised that this may in the end take the Jew away 
from Judaism, rather than strengthen his love for it, 
the answer may perhaps best be given in the word 
of the psalmist. “Who shall dwell in thy holy 
hill? . . . He that sweareth to his own hurt and 
changeth not’! If the principles which lead to such 
an attitude and viewpoint as that which I have out- 
lined are valid, Judaism dare not shrink from apply- 
ing them when they affect itself. 

True it may be that this attitude will cause some, 
perhaps many, to find spiritual light and life else- 
where, but Judaism will obtain the more than compen- 
sating joy of knowing that the faith of those who, 
having known and heard all, have yet chosen Judaism 
as the deepest and clearest of all spiritual faiths, 
is founded as upon a rock. Liberal Judaism must 
dare to liberalize itself. 


5 Any religion which is unable to stand a searching scrutiny 
can hardly expect to retain its influence. A refusal to be exam- 
ined in the light of the knowledge of the present would be tanta- 
mount to an admission that it possessed intrinsic defects. If, on 
the other hand, a religion be sure of itself, it will welcome testing, 
secure in its own opinion of itself at least. And in any case if 
these or any tests which are justifiable prove it to be worthless, 
it cannot in conscience be preserved. 


CHAPTER V 
WHAT OF “‘THE MISSION OF ISRAEL’? 


I have said that religion, the purpose of which is 
to help men to live well, must be characterized by an 
attitude very different from that of Liberal Judaism 
to-day. The difference has been shown to be three- 
fold. It lies, first of all, in abandoning dogmatic 
assertion relating to matters of theological belief, 
and in substituting for such dogmatic assertion open- 
minded and intelligent consideration of viewpoints 
quite dissimilar, and even conflicting. 

In the next place, a change in attitude was shown 
to be necessary in the emphasis placed upon the re- 
lation between the ethical teachings of the past and 
those of the present. The past is not to be employed 
as an index to the problems of the present, but is to 
be consulted rather as a supplementary and secondary 
help in dealing with them. 

Finally the attitude of Judaism is not to be one 
of seeking to discover and to teach the right or the 
good way of life; Judaism must recognize and act 
upon the fact that it cannot find any one way which 
can be commended to all individuals. Judaism must 
realize that the right and good way of life for any 

58 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 59 


person is, and must be, quite different from that of 
any or all other persons, and that its own sphere of 
effort must lie, first in preparing the individual to 
find the way which is best for him, and then in stim- 
ulating and encouraging him to persist in that way. 

It may be charged that such fundamental changes 
in attitude as are here suggested, would, if adopted, 
quite. vitiate the character of Judaism. The adoption 
of such an attitude by a religious movement which is 
in the formative stages to-day might (it may be 
added) not be amiss. But in a religion whose place 
and purpose are as old and well-established as are 
Judaism’s, the introduction of such changes would 
do little but bring about confusion, and the service 
that they might render would be infinitely less than 
the harm which they would probably do. I believe, 
however, that the changes which the adoption of this 
attitude would necessitate, will prove neither danger- 
ous nor destructive in character but will act, rather, 
as a needed corrective and stimulant. And I be- 
lieve that it is the business of those who hold that this 
attitude is a right and necessary one, to bend all 
their energies to an attempt which they consider not 
only justifiable but imperative. Feelings of appre- 
hension and doubt concerning the outcome of such 
sweeping changes, real as they * must be, vanish be- 


1'When the fundamental point of view concerning any religion 
which was laid down in the first chapter is recalled, i.e., that its 
aim must not be to perpetuate or to preserve itself, but that 
when occasion arise it must be prepared to sacrifice itself, it will 
appear clearly that nothing bars the way to such an attempt. 


60  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


fore the possibility of progress and development 
which such a course presents. Judaism must be 
reborn. 

It will be necessary in the course of the following 
chapters to deal with certain aspects of the life of 
Jews living in Western lands, which Liberal Juda- 
ism, as it exists at present, has not touched. It will 
be necessary to relate the principles of religion, and 
therefore of Judaism, to questions which have not 
hitherto been considered as lying within its province. 
But the most important changes which the new Juda- 
ism, at which I have hinted, will inaugurate, must 
affect the fundamental teachings of Liberal Judaism. 
It is the doctrines and beliefs of Liberal Judaism 
which will undergo the most marked changes. For 
the changes in them will condition further advance. 

Such questions as what the “Mission of Israel” is, 
whether intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews 
is a practise to be discountenanced, as it has been in 
the past, and what the relation of Judaism to other 
faiths and teachings, particularly the faith and teach- 
ings of Christianity, is to be, are questions upon 
which Liberal Judaism now holds a very definite 
point of view. And if the attitude of Liberal Juda- 
ism be in great part altered, its teachings concerning 
these matters must necessarily undergo the same 
change. 

Perhaps the pivotal conception of the social and 
religious philosophy of Judaism has been its belief 
in the Messianic character of the Jewish people, the 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 61 


belief that Israel was a nation burdened and ex: 
alted by a particular mission. In Rabbinic Judaism 
this belief was at first not dissimilar from that which 
Liberal Judaism now holds. Israel was conceived 
of as the messenger people, the bearer of the truth 
of the one God to all the nations of the earth. But 
as the second dispersion proved to be a lasting one, 
and as century after century of intolerance and perse- 
cution went by, and the world gave no sign of being 
anxious or even willing to accept the message which 
Israel offered, Jews everywhere came gradually to 
place less emphasis on the importance of their mis- 
sion. Instead of longing for the day when they 
themselves should enlighten the world, they began 
to concentrate their hope on the coming of a Messiah 
who should first of all (for this was far more urgently 
needed) relieve the oppression of Israel. The desire 
to fulfill its mission, although it never vanished from 
Judaism, grew less keen. That mission became asso- 
ciated in a rather hazy way with the return to Pales- 
tine under the leadership of the Messiah. Simul- 
taneouly with that occurrence the eyes of all men 
would, it was believed, be miraculously opened, all 
would unite to adore the one true God, and the mission 
of Israel would automatically be accomplished. 
When Liberal Judaism arose it rejected utterly, 
as we have seen, the doctrine of the personal Messiah, 
with which doctrine the conception of the mission of 
Israel was bound up. But the belief in a mission it 
clung to firmly. It went further. It emphasized and 


62 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


magnified that belief. It went so far as to associate 
all of Jewish history from earliest times, even the 
tragedies of that history, with the missionary concep- 
tion, and to interpret them in its terms. In an era 
of universalism, the universal message of Israel to the 
world was seized on, and made the cornerstone of the 
new movement.” In 1869 the first representative body 
of reform Jews to make any responsible public state- 
ment declared: “We look upon the destruction of the 
second Jewish commonwealth not as a punishment 
for the sinfulness of Israel but as the result of the 
divine purpose . . . which . . . consists in the dis- 
persion of the Jews to all parts of the earth, for the 
realization of their high priestly mission to lead the 
nations to the true knowledge and worship of God.” 
And forty years later I find in Montefiore’s Out- 
lines of Liberal Judaism the following passage: 
“More and more in the modern world Israel is becom- 
ing conscious of its religious mission. . . . And the 
wider conviction of the mission together with the de- 
velopment and growth of Liberal Judaism, and a 
gradual change in external circumstances, may all 
work together for the better carrying out and accom- 


? Liberal Judaism clung to the belief in the mission of Israel 
because its early teachers were firmly convinced that such a 
mission really did exist for their people. But it is interesting to 
note that this conception of a mission served two purposes. Not 
only did it furnish Liberal Judaism with an aim, a purpose 
toward the accomplishment of which it could strive, but the 
missionary conception was offered also as the chief reason for 
the preservation of the Jewish identity when once the conception 
of Israel as a nation had been abandoned. 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 63 


plishment of the Jewish mission in many quarters of 
the civilized world.” But it is hardly necessary to 
adduce proofs that this belief exists. It is the very 
heart of the teachings of Liberal Judaism. 

Although almost all Liberal Jews are united in the 
belief that Israel has a certain mission, it is necessary 
to note that there is no such universal agreement as 
to its character, and if there were differences as to 
the details of the mission only, it would hardly be 
necessary to point them out. But the differences in 
the viewpoints concerning Israel’s mission are so 
marked that it will be necessary to deal with them 
separately first, in order to deal ultimately with the 
whole missionary conception. It is possible to find 
however in the various shades of belief two outstand- 
ing points of view which include many others. Ac- 
cording to the first, the mission of Israel is primarily 
religious—the propagation throughout the world of 
the belief in God’s unity. The other view is that 
Israel’s mission is social, and consists in establishing 
Justice and Peace upon earth. These conceptions 
must now be analyzed.° 

The belief in what I have called a religious mission 
for Israel has arisen from the doctrines that Israel 
stood and still stands in a peculiar relation to God, 


It must be made clear that these two conceptions of Israel’s 
mission are often held together. But I deal with them separately 
because they touch entirely different fields of belief and action, 
and beause, even where they are avowedly held together, one finds 
for the most part that either one or the other conception pre- 
dominates to a very large extent. 


64  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


that he has imparted to Israel his highest teachings 
and that the greatest degree of truth to be found in 
any faith lies in the faith of Judaism. Even Liberal 
Jews, while they are willing for the most part to admit 
that their non-Jewish neighbors may possess a certain 
amount of religious truth, still claim with undimin- 
ished assurance that the purest, the highest form of 
this truth is possessed by them. The religious mis- 
sion is held to be the ultimate winning over of all the 
world to see and to acknowledge that this is so. 

The fact that the world has shown no inclination 
in the past to be so won over, and gives little promise 
of doing so in the future, has not shaken the belief 
of Judaism in its mission. That there has been no 
sign of the attainment of Israel’s aim would in itself 
be no reason for abandoning that aim. It is the aim 
itself, the conception underlying the belief in Israel’s 
mission which I would question. Is it a true and a 
good one? Or is it the result of persecution without 
and prejudice within, and out of harmony with the 
spirit of enlightenment which religion to-day must 
fearlessly invoke? Can we still intelligently hold 
that any one religion or any large group, even our 
own, is possessed of deeper religious knowledge and 
higher religious truth than all the other peoples of 
the world? 

I firmly believe that we can not. The whole trend 
of modern religious and philosophical thinking is 
away from the belief, held through so many centuries, 
that there is or can be one truth or one religion which, 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 65 


above all others, is worthy to be adopted and cher- 
ished by all men. Even the backwash of the reaction 
against the comparative standard in the study of re- 
ligion and ethics has failed to engulf the conviction 
that no one set of truths is so constituted as to be fit 
for the use of all mankind. The fact has been firmly 
established that the beliefs which are the heritage 
of any religious group bear on them not the stamp 
of universal truth, but are, and by their nature can 
be, true only for that group whose spiritual heritage 
and possession they are. Every group evolves the 
beliefs which are best for it, and this fact is recog- 
nized by all the leaders of religious life and thought 
who allow themselves to see life steadily and see it 
whole. 

Such leaders if they be Christians admit frankly 
that Christianity cannot claim to be the one religion 
fitted for all men. They know that Christianity can 
only hope to serve the religious needs of those men 
and women who, either through education or because 
of certain individual religious tendencies, are likely 
to be influenced by it. And the same is true of Juda- 
ism. Few among its religious teachers have faced 
the fact that the belief in a best and highest form 
of spiritual truth, one that is destined to be univer- 
sally accepted, must in the light of modern thought 
and feeling be abandoned. But more and more 
Jewish men and women are coming to realize and to 
accept that fact. 

Moreover, religious truths are achieved but slowly, 


66 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


and the efforts which go into the discovery and secur- 
ing of these truths play so important a part that with- 
out the psychological reinforcement which their mem- 
ory brings, the truths themselves lose much of their 
value. “For God fulfills himself in many ways,” 
and in any particular instance, background and his- 
tory are a most important element in the fulfillment. 
Thus Judaism and the truths which it teaches are 
infinitely more true for Jews because of their Jewish 
background, and the history and teachings of Chris- 
tianity are of far greater worth to Christians because 
of the specifically Christian memories that are bound 
up with them. To long for the day when Christendom 
will accept the truths of Judaism, or vice versa, is to 
lose sight of the very inmost character of those truths. 
The words ““The Lord is our God, the Lord is one” 
(quite apart from their philosophic truth) are vital 
and true to the Jew because he is a Jew and to no 
other race or group or religious brotherhood, can 
they ever be so vital and so true. Just as the Chris- 
tian “Pater Noster’ and the Moslem creed are far 
more true for those who utter them than the Jewish 
confession of the unity of God could ever be. 

It is not as if Judaism existed in a savage or un- 
tutored world, a world of primitive peoples without 
any religious life save that which might be found in 
tribal superstitions. When the Jewish conception of 
God first came into being such a state of affairs may 
have existed. But it exists no longer. Since that 
time the world has changed. Great religions have 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 67 


arisen. Profound systems of religious thought have 
been developed by minds as able and far-seeing as 
those which fashioned the religion of Israel. And 
these religions have evolved through the course of 
centuries. They embody, as does Judaism, the re- 
sults of the efforts of countless thousands of devoted 
men and women to find truth. These facts Liberal 
Judaism cannot ignore. To continue to hold that the 
struggles for truth of these men and women, and 
the visions which they caught, are unequal to those 
which Judaism has achieved, would be to brand our 
faith as bigoted and unenlightened. Each of the 
great religious faiths has at its best caught a high 
glimpse of truth, and none of them possesses so 
much of her as to be worthy of replacing all the 
rest. 

It is evident then that the truths embodied in one 
religion cannot take the place of truths cherished by 
another. But even were it possible I do not believe 
that it would be a desirable end. I have said that 
for members within a group, religion ought not to 
lay down any one theological belief or moral law, but 
that it must seek to stimulate every individual to 
find what is for him the best way of life and to help 
him to go in that way. Now if a religion is not to 
formulate one moral law or one theological creed 
for acceptance by individuals within its group, it cer- 
tainly ought not attempt to do so for members out- 
side its own group. On the contrary its aim in re- 
gard to the adherents of differing faiths ought be to 


68  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


stimulate them to develop their own religious con- 
sciousness in their own way! 

The aim of Judaism, for example, must not be 
to win Christendom away from its belief in the triune 
character of the deity. In consonance rather with 
the principles laid down in Chapters I and IV, 
the aim of Judaism in relation to Christianity ought 
to be to help it in every way possible to develop to 
the fullest its trinitarian doctrine. Judaism must 
look forward, not to the day when Christendom shall 
recognize that God is, and can be, but one, but to the 
coming of the time when the religion which believes 
in the union of the person of the Christ with God and 
the Holy Spirit, shall hold that belief in the broadest 
and fullest possible manner. Just as Judaism has 
the right to insist on the opportunity of maintaining 
and developing itself for the Jew, so there is laid upon 
it the duty of helping, if, and whenever it can, to 
make Christendom fully and perfectly Christian. 
Thus the conception of a religious mission for Israel 
in the sense of bringing the peoples of the world to 
admit the unity of God is untenable. 

In effect this conception has already been aban- 
doned for there are no efforts made to win converts 
to Judaism.* Yet in any but a fatalistic religion, if 


*This was not however always the case, and it is true that 
external causes rather than a change of viewpoint put an end to 
the missionary activities of Judaism, since after the rise to power 
of the Christian church it became too dangerous for Jews to 
proselytize. But in recent years in lands where the Jew is quite 
free to win adherents to Judaism practically no efforts to do so 
have been recorded. 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 69 


it were seriously believed that certain of its truths 
were destined to be accepted throughout the world, 
an attempt would certainly be made to begin at least 
the active propagation of those truths. Judaism’s 
failure to make such an attempt to-day shows quite 
clearly that it does not really believe that the truths 
which it so cherishes will ever be accepted by man- 
kind. Judaism may, though I believe it ought not, 
regret that fact. But it does recognize it. And hav- 
ing recognized it, the thing to do is not to avert its 
gaze in order to shut out what it has seen, but to begin 
taking stock of its truths anew, and of the new rela- 
tion in which they must be thought of as being bound, 
to the other peoples of the world. The religious mis- 
sion of Israel must be renounced in name. It has 
already been renounced in fact. 

The second conception of Israel’s mission is of a 
social character. The service to be rendered is 
thought of in social terms. Justice, peace, universal 
brotherhood, these are the boons which Israel has 
been elected to bestow upon the world. These great 
ideals were the burden of prophetic teaching. Their 
realization is the most urgent need of the present era. 
And Liberal Judaism, basing itself on the prophetic 
teachings, holds it to be the function of Israel to 
bring them to pass. Not even the wildest imagina- 
tion however would dream that Israel alone is to 
accomplish this great task. Nor does the Liberal 
Jewish belief in its social mission contemplate such 
a possibility. All the peoples of the earth are to 


70 = LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


play a part in the world transformation, but to Israel 
is reserved the mission of leading and guiding the 
rest.” Dr. Abrahams has put it: ““The Messianic idea 
now means to many Jews a belief in human develop- 
ment and progress, with the Jews filling the réle 
of the Messianic people, but only as primus inter 
pares.” 

The question again arises as to whether this concep- 
tion of the mission of Israel is a valid one. Or is it, 
like the belief in a religious mission for Israel, at 
variance with the finer purposes and ideals of our 
times? Certainly the same criticism cannot be made 
of it as was made of the conception of a religious mis- 
sion. For the social ideals of the Hebrew prophets, 
unlike the religious teachings of Judaism, are no 
longer the subject of difference of opinion and belief. 
Their validity is no longer questioned. They have 
long since been accepted, in theory at least, by the 
civilized world. In practise however they seem little 
nearer realization than when they were first enunci- 
ated. So that if Jews everywhere were to attempt 
to bring about that order of things foretold and de- 
manded by the prophets, they could not be accused 
of imposing alien beliefs and customs on the other 
peoples of the earth. They would only be doing the 
very important work of accepting, and of causing 
others to accept, in deed what has long since been 
accepted in creed. The attempt would be wholly 
laudable. 


®“Religions Ancient and Modern”; “Judaism,” p. 94. 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 71 


But this work can no longer be conceived of as the 
particular and peculiar mission of Israel. The desire 
to establish justice in the gate is no longer an exclu- 
sively Jewish desire, and the hope of an abiding 
and universal peace is no longer a particularly Jew- 
ish one. They were, but they have ceased to be. 
Non-Jews are quite as strenuous in their efforts to 
bring these things to pass as are Jews, and the realiza- 
tion of the prophetic ideals is as intense a longing of 
many Christians as it is of many Jews.° The finest 
and noblest spirits of all peoples and faiths are now 
uniting to bring about that which the Hebrew prophets 
first demanded. To continue to say that the fulfill- 
ment of their prophecies is particularly or even 
primarily the function of the Jew is to lose sight of 
the truth that they have become the property of all 
mankind, and that not Jews alone but the more en- 
lightened among Jews and non-Jews alike must share 
the high mission of bringing them to pass. 

The great social ideals of justice, peace, and the 
brotherhood of men were Jewish in origin. But they 
have been caught up by eager spirits everywhere, 
and the children of men now engaged in the struggle 


*It is impossible when we think or speak of the efforts being 
made in recent years to bring about an order of justice and 
peace to ignore or to minimize the fact that so much is being 
done toward this end by non-Jews. And while the Jew may do 
and should do his share in building a world order that shall be 
good, he must recognize that figures such as Tolstoy and Henry 
George, Lord Robert Cecil and General Smuts, none of whom 
are Jews, are quite as deeply imbued with the sense of a social 
duty and mission as are any members of the Jewish group. 
CaN as much as ours is the cause of justice and peace upon 
eart 


72 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


for their achievement are to be found in every re- 
ligious camp throughout our world. Israel can no 
longer be thought of as “primus inter pares.” There 
can be no one Messiah people, no one savior people 
to redeem mankind. All the world struggling to- 
gether and with neither first nor last must unite to 
save itself. The social, like the religious conception 
of the mission of Israel, proves to be one which can 
no longer be retained. 

Yet the belief in a mission for Israel has in the 
past played an important part in the religious con- 
sciousness of many Jews. ‘To take it away and to 
offer nothing in its place would be to impoverish 
spiritually those who cherished it, and it may justly 
be asked, what can be offered to replace that which 
will be lost. Can some other conception which will 
not be out of harmony with the basic principles of re- 
ligion be found to take the place in Judaism of the 
belief which it now cherishes in regard to the char- 
acter of its mission? 

I believe that it can, and although I shall not here 
develop the conception in full, I must point out the 
direction in which the new trend of belief will lie. 
That trend will lie away from a hazy and uncon- 
sidered notion that Israel’s mission is somehow to 
bring about the acceptance of the truth of God’s 
unity by all mankind, and that Judaism must keep 
that truth pure and unchanged until the coming of 
the longed-for event. The end to be achieved will 
not be thought of as the preserving, one might almost 


WHAT OF “THE MISSION OF ISRAEL”? 73 


say, embalming of the religious truths, which Israel 
has attained. But realizing that they are, and must 
ever be, its alone, Judaism will press forward to 
their further development. And instead of passively 
waiting for other religious groups to abandon their 
distinctive beliefs and to accept those of Judaism, an 
active effort will be made to stimulate those other 
groups to religious self-development, similar to that 
which Judaism will itself attempt. 

Instead of the belief that Israel has a mission as 
guide and leader in the achievement of the great 
ideals of civilization, a far finer and nobler concep- 
tion will arise. Israel’s task will be thought of as 
fitting itself to take its place not before, but among 
the other peoples of the world, not as guide but as 
comrade, not as having priority over other peoples, 
even in the field of service, but as peer and equal 
having a work to do, not superior or greater, though 
in some respects, perhaps, distinct and different from 
the rest. 


CHAPTER VI 
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR JEWISH CHILDREN 


There are few problems that receive closer attention 
to-day than the problem of education. What shall 
be taught children, how it shall be taught, and when, 
are subjects which have been widely and carefully 
discussed. Parents and professional educators are 
alike coming to see the truth of the old saying that 
a nation’s greatest asset is its man (and woman) 
power. And they realize that the quality and char- 
acter of this power depend in largest part on the 
training of the nation’s boys and girls. This new real- 
ization of an old truth, coupled with the always 
earnest desire of parents to have their children well 
prepared to meet the problems of life, has led to 
reéxamination and to revision of aims and methods 
in our schools and colleges. 

Religious education, the Sabbath and Sunday 
schools, of Judaism and Christianity have also under- 
gone marked changes. ‘Those responsible for the 
religious education of children have followed the 
general trend of affairs and have been reasonably 
quick to see the advantages and benefits to be derived 
from the new pedagogy. Yet they have lacked one 

74 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 75 


great advantage, an advantage with which educators 
working along secular lines have had, namely the 
stimulating interest of parents. For parents no longer 
seem to consider religious education a vital problem 
as affecting the lives of their children. 

This was not always so. In America both among 
Jews and Christians the religious training of a child 
was once held to be of primary importance. A child, 
it was believed, could be called good or bad largely 
on the basis of its efforts and achievements in the 
religious school, and parents, strict churchgoers and 
regular attendants at Synagogue alike, placed the 
utmost importance on the religious school records of 
their children. Being themselves deeply religious, 
they naturally took the keenest interest in the work 
of the religious school. Plans and projects concern- 
ing it concerned them, for they were anxious to have 
it discharge its functions wisely and well. 

All this has changed. And the chief reason for 
the change les in the fact that the parents of to-day 
are not themselves vitally interested in Church or 
Synagogue. Living well is no longer conceived of 
as synonymous with regularity of attendance at a 
place of worship. Men and women find that they can 
live their own lives, on terms quite satisfactory to 
themselves, without the help of religion. Conse- 
quently they take less and less interest in the religious 
education of their children. Nor are they entirely 
to blame. What parents prize for themselves they 
are likely to prize for their children, and what they 


76 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


themselves disprize they can hardly be expected to 
commend to their boys and girls. When men and 
women drew real strength and help and inspiration 
from their religion, they desired with their whole 
hearts that these things be vouchsafed their children. 
If they feel, as so many have come to feel of late 
years, that religion has little to offer to them, little 
which will enrich or ennoble their own lives, they are 
quite right in questioning its value for the young 
lives whose destiny they are in part to shape. This 
is their point of view, and just as they grudge the 
Sabbath hours of freedom from their workaday tasks, 
which religious devotion demands of them, so they 
guard the hours left free to their children by the 
schools, ofttimes resenting the claims on those hours, 
small though they be, which are made by religious 
education. 

The case must not however be overstated, nor 
should it be imagined that religious education, partic- 
ularly Jewish religious education, has ceased to play 
a part in the life of American Jewish communities. 
In some communities the Sabbath or Sunday school 
(as so many Liberal Jewish congregations have, in 
accordance with the fact, called it) is the most hope- 
ful part of the religious life. There are Rabbis, not 
a few, who, feeling despondent over the lack of re- 
ligious interest manifested by the adults, turn all 
their energies to inculcating and developing religious 
interest in the children. But since the religious train- 
ing of their children does not seem to most parents 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION iv 


as important a matter as their secular training, re- 
ligious educators have been bereft of a great ad- 
vantage,—the active interest and assistance of 
parents. 

On the other hand there are some Jewish parents 
who desire that their children shall be instructed in 
the faith of their fathers. Some of these parents 
have no synagogal interests themselves and take little 
part in the religious life of their comunities. Yet 
they feel, paradoxically enough, that their children 
will derive benefit from that which they have ceased 
to value for themselves. Tradition is still on the side 
of religious education, and, while such parents may 
drift away from the synagogue, they do not wish to 
break entirely with tradition. And so their children 
receive religious instruction. 

There is one further class of Jewish men and 
women, of no inconsiderable numbers whose children 
attend religious schools. They are the supporters of, 
and believers in, the synagogue. They do not send 
their children grudgingly or half-heartedly to the 
religious schools. Firmly convinced of the value 
of their religious faith, they insist that that faith be 
taught their children. They attend religious services 
themselves. They intend that their children shall 
do so too. But I must again point out that this group, 
while it still exists, has grown and is growing pro- 
portionally smaller than the other groups. 

The problem with which I deal in this chapter, is 
not, however, how to bring the children of those Jews 


78  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


uninterested in Judaism under the influence of Jew- 
ish religious education. What is of more importance 
is, what shall be taught those children who are now 
under its influence. What is to be the aim and method 
of the religious education designed for Jewish boys 
and girls? The importance of the problem need 
hardly be stressed. On its solution rest in large part 
the character of the Judaism of the future, and not a 
little of the individual character of great numbers 
of Jewish men and women. 

The teachings of the religious school will reflect 
very largely the attitude of the elders of a congre- 
gation toward religion. I have tried to show that 
the attitude so widely held at present is, in some of 
its fundamental aspects, a wrong one, and that, if 
religion is to become a vital force, much of it will 
have to be changed. The dogmatism, the stress laid 
on uniformity, the wrong emphasis placed on the re- 
lation of past teachings to the faith of the present, 
these must go. And what ought not to be the belief of 
adults must certainly not be taught to children. The 
teachings about God, about the Mission of Israel, and 
other important matters must be greatly altered. The 
attitude of open-mindedness, of tolerance for “‘other- 
ism,” of individual effort to find truth, which has 
been commended to its elders, must be presented to 
the child in a manner adapted to its capacity and 
understanding. But it is not necessary to recapitulate 
all the changes in outlook which such an attitude 
will engender. They have been indicated elsewhere. 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 19 


There remain however several points which pertain 
particularly to the question of religious education 
and to a consideration of these I would now turn. 
The object of all education is, or should be, to 
form character. And it is necessary to emphasize the 
fact that religious education is in a very real sense a 
part of the education which a child receives.* It was 
pointed out in the chapter on Fundamentals that, 
while the purpose of religion is to help men to live 
well, the mistake must not be made of imagining that 
it is the one or even the chief influence effective in 
attaining that end. It was explained that there are 
many other influences in the life of the individual 
working to the same end. Similarly while it is the 
task of religious education to help to develop charac- 
ter, to instil in the individual a moral sense, it must 
not be imagined that religious education has a monop- 
oly of this function. It is the task of all education, 
rightly conceived, secular as well as religious. Even 
secular education, it might be added, is but one of 
the factors in building character. For just as real, 
though perhaps far more subtle, are the influences 
toward that end, of the home and of friendships and 
associations. And religious and secular educators, 
aiming as they do at the development of character 
1A very important part it is true, but still a part. We know 
that the part cannot be as great as the whole, and the whole in 
its turn retains its unity only as long as all its parts are present. 
Religious education is not to be confounded with the whole of 
education, though it is perhaps even more necessary to empha- 


size the fact that education is incomplete without the religious, 
which is one of its most important, elements. 


80  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


in the individual, must realize that their efforts are 
but the conscious part of a process, infinitely varied, 
and in the main to be found working on the subcon- 
scious levels of the individual’s life. 

Now character is achieved through the training 
of the intellect and the training of the will. The 
training of the intellect teaches the individual to un- 
derstand life. It helps him to think and to reach 
decisions concerning the problems of his own be- 
havior and concerning his relation to the social groups 
of which he is a member. ‘The training of the will 
prepares the individual to carry out his decisions, to 
conquer himself, to master the difficulties which he 
meets. These two branches of education must not, 
however, be thought of as separate. They form the 
main strands, inextricably interwoven in the web and 
woof of character. The training of the intellect, 
knowledge, and understanding, are worthless unless 
the will can turn them to account. And the perfect 
will, which is power, is ineffective unless there be be- 
hind it the guiding hand of reason. ‘Together, the 
trained intellect and the trained will form character. 

If the purpose of religious education, like the pur- 
pose of all education be to develop character, it 
must in its own way assist in training the intellect 
and the will. Nor is it difficult to assign to religious 
education certain provinces both of the intellect and 
of the will which may be strictly called its own. 
There are whole departments of knowledge, vital 
departments, which no agency but religious education 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 81 


attempts to touch. And as regards the training of 
the will, the religious school is expected to instil in 
theory, and to a certain degree in practise, those habits 
of action which are essential to the formation of 
character. 

This is particularly true in America. For the 
complete separation of church and state has thrown 
almost the entire task of systematic moral instruc- 
tion upon the religious school. Ethics, or the science 
of conduct, is not taught in the schools of America, 
nor is instruction given in biblical or religious his- 
tory. It is not necessary to inquire here”? whether 
such a policy is a right one in a republic. I am con- 
cerned rather with its result, and the result has been 
to leave the responsibility for these two very impor- 
tant parts of education, the science of ethics (a part 
of the training of the will) and the history of the 
Bible and of religion (a part of the training of the 
intellect), to the religious schools of varying denomi- 
nations. 

It is necessary then to consider how Liberal Juda- 
ism ought to set about its task of moral instruction. 
How can it best instruct the Jewish child in the science 
of ethics or conduct? What shall it teach the child 
concerning its religious past, concerning the Bible, 

The question has in recent years been raised as to whether 
moral instruction of a non-sectarian character ought not to be given 
in the public schools. Numerous plans have been suggested, and 
against all of them objections have been raised. For a full dis- 
cussion of these plans see Felix Adler’s “Moral Instruction of 


Children,” pp. 3-16, published in the International Education 
Series, Vol. XXI. D. Appleton and Company. 


82 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


and concerning the relation of Judaism to other 
faiths? The last of these questions is in many ways 
the most important. For the answer to it will de- 
termine the greatest part of the religious outlook of 
the child. To put that question in another way I 
would ask, How far is the child to be taught concern- 
ing all religious matters, as a Jewish child? Is it 
to be taught only Jewish ethics and only about the 
Hebrew Bible and its heroic figures? And if other 
religious beliefs and figures are presented to it, in 
what light are they to be placed? How far is the 
desire to make of the child a good Jew or a good 
Jewess to determine the character of the instruction 
it receives? 

These questions cannot be easily answered. Like 
so many questions touching the science of pedagogy, 
the answers to them will vary greatly with the varying 
ages of the children concerned. It is clearly impos- 
sible to attempt to instruct a child of seven or eight 
in comparative ethics and religion; on the other hand, 
it ought be equally clear that after ten years of re- 
ligious instruction it is impossible to present the 
same clear-cut teaching concerning such matters as 
the existence and character of God, or the peculiar 
task of Judaism in the world, as the child received at 
first. As it grows older and meets with non-Jewish 
children, and with beliefs other than those taught to 
it, the child will wonder concerning the truth of 
what it has learned, and it will begin to feel the need 
of relating its particular religion to the world without. 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 83 


Jewish religious schools must prepare to meet the 
needs of this later period. They must attempt to 
prepare the child for the problems which it must face. 

Yet there is no doubt that the Jewish child must be 
taught Judaism first of all. By Judaism I mean Jew- 
ish beliefs, customs, history and ethics. These are 
imperative both as background and as foundation. 
They alone can furnish the child with self-respect, 
as a member of the Jewish group. And self-respect 
the child must have, for it will live either with Jews, 
or, if away from them, will be looked upon by others 
as a Jew. In either case, it is essential to the devel- 
opment of his character, that he know his past, that 
he be fortified and dignified by the knowledge of the 
great tradition behind him. 

With the Bible as the basis of Judaism, the child 
is to begin. For in the study of the Bible both the 
intellectual and the volitional life will be quickened. 
On the intellectual side it is impossible to over-empha- 
size the value of a thorough knowledge of the Bible. 
Goethe has said that “The greater the intellectual 
progress of the ages, the more fully will it be possible 
to employ the Bible not only as the foundation, but as 
the instrument of education.”* The story that it 
tells, the figures that it presents, the life that it por- 
trays, are all bound up in a unique way with the his- 
tory and culture of mankind. It has largely shaped 
the thoughts of men of the Western world, and at all 


*Quoted in “A Book of Jewish Thoughts,” p. 139. Oxford 
University Press, pub. 1920. 


84 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


times it has indirectly influenced them. When it has 
not been cited as authority, it has been alluded to 
as reference. The history of literature, of art, of 
music, have been for centuries closely bound up 
with it. To understand them fully in later years 
the child must come to know and love the Bible 
early. 

But I would attach even more importance to the 
moral and spiritual teachings of the Bible, and to 
the effect which those teachings can have upon the 
training of the child’s will. The best of them have 
stood the test of time and have been found true. They 
are the moral heritage of mankind and upon them has 
been built much of what is finest in our civilization. 
Every child, Jewish and Christian, can be greatly 
strengthened by an understanding of the moral prin- 
ciples set forth in the Bible, and the will of any child 
must be fortified by an earnest attempt to put those 
principles into practise. 

Yet in a particular sense they are the possession 
of the Jewish child. I would not imply that a non- 
Jew cannot, for example, understand and practise 
the commandment, ““Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself” quite as well as can a Jew. But there can 
and should be a peculiarly intimate feeling, a feeling 
of almost filial affection, on the part of the Jew for 
this and other of the great spiritual teachings of the 
Bible. Such affection implanted during the years 
of childhood will deepen later into a conscious at- 
tempt to put into practise what was so early loved. 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 85 


It is the task of the Jewish religious school to instil in 
the Jew that feeling of affection. It is the business 
of the Jewish teacher to inspire the child with the 
desire to claim its own. 

Yet the child must be led gently. The Bible must 
not be forced upon it. And it must be remembered 
that the Bible is to be taught not for the Bible’s sake, 
but for the sake of the child. Its teachings must be 
fitted to the child’s comprehension and not vice-versa. 
Nor are all children to be taught the Bible in a uni- 
form way, as the multiplication table might be taught, 
—an unvarying and impersonal affair. Rather must 
the child be stimulated as an individual spirit to seek 
and to find the glory of the Bible for itself. And the 
glory of the Bible lies not chiefly in the uniformly 
applicable character of its teachings, but rather in 
the fact that it is so wide and grand of scope, that 
within it there is contained the possibility of infinitely 
diverse, infinitely personal inspiration. 

“It is a low benefit,” says Emerson, “to give me 
something. It is a high benefit to enable me to do 
somewhat for myself.” I would apply his word to re- 
ligious education. It is a little thing to give the 
child the priceless spiritual treasures of the Bible. It 
is a great thing to help the child to find those treas- 
ures in its own time and way. Yet this is seldom done. 
And I cannot better emphasize what is meant than 
by quoting the word of an able Jewish educator on 
this subject. In a paper on the “Sunday School and 
Religious Consciousness,” Rabbi Louis Grossman 


86 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


writes: * “We insist that our children shall know 
Jewish history and the formulated articles of belief. 
But they require throughout their tried careers, to 
orientate themselves in the crossing roads of human 
experience, to find their way toward the true, the 
good, the beautiful in God’s world. Being led to 
them is not half as good nor half as satisfactory nor 
half as wonderful nor half as happy as finding them 
themselves. In fact, religion consists in discovering 
the wisdom and the wonders of life. Only fresh and 
genuine initiative counts for something genuine be- 
fore God and men. We have allowed nothing to 
initiative, nothing to spontaneity, nothing to the per- 
sonal fact in the soul. Religion is a prescription to- 
day, just as much as it was in ancient days. We 
have taken the freshness out of it for young souls that 
reach out for the hand of God, who long to see things 
with their own eyes and to touch the world of won- 
ders with their own hands. . . . Instead of allowing 
youthful nature to speak its language of marvel, we 
interpose our articles and threshed-out history.” This 
is a serious indictment from a religious teacher. But 
the indictment is true. Herein lies the greatest defect 
in the religious education of the past. Against this 
defect let the religious education of the future be on 
its guard. 

The training of the Jewish child in Jewish history 
and ethics is however but half the problem. To 


*Yearbook of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, 
Vol. XXX, p. 306. 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 87 


teach the child only about his own faith would pre- 
pare him almost as little for contact with the world 
as to teach him nothing concerning it. Nor would 
it serve to introduce him to other faiths as though 
they were of inferior quality to his own. Such a 
course might strengthen his adherence to Judaism, but 
it would in no way help him to form an intelligent 
conception of the problems which he must face. The 
Jewish child will meet intolerance enough. And the 
weapon with which to fight intolerance is not intoler- 
ance. Intolerance can only be met and overcome 
by understanding and knowledge and insight. 

An understanding of faiths other than his own, 
of viewpoints differing from his, is required as part 
of the child’s religious training. Nor need it be 
feared that this will weaken the beliefs that the child 
holds. He will rather achieve a sense of value, and 
of perspective. He will respect his own religior 
for pointing out the good in other faiths. He will be 
tolerant of others, respecting the sacredness of the 
right of other faiths to their peculiar individuality, 
and thus he will be immeasurably strengthened in 
demanding tolerance and respect for his own faith. 
And finally the sympathetic study of other religions 
will help the Jewish child to take part in the 
greatest task before all America to-day, the task 
of ending race and religious hatred, an dof estab- 
lishing an order of tolerance and good will and 
understanding. 

The whole question is not unlike the problem of 


88  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


what shall be taught American school children con- 
cerning the history of other nations. The American 
child must certainly learn American history first. It 
must know the past on which it stands, the heroes of 
its own people, and the principles on which the gov- 
ernment, under which it lives, rests. But that is not 
all that it must learn. To help the child to under- 
stand fully the world it lives in, to prepare the child 
for the larger citizenship of international affairs, it 
is taught the history and customs of other lands. And 
were the teaching is wise and far-sighted the history 
and customs of these lands are not disparaged. They 
are not taught to demonstrate the superiority of Amer- 
ican history and customs, but to give the child a 
sympathetic insight into the life of other peoples. 
They are taught not to bring out the bad, but the good 
that is in them. And just as surely as such a course 
is necessary to promote international peace and good 
will, so surely is it necessary in order to bring about 
inter-racial and inter-religious peace and good will 
within the nation ° that the Jewish child be taught first, 
about his own faith, and then, not disparagingly but 
in sympathetic manner, about faiths other than his 
own. 

It is impossible here to go into the details of 

°It is of course at least equally important that the Christian 
child on its part be taught in the same way, and with the same 
end in view. But the fact that the Christian child is seldom 
taught in this way is no reason for the Jew not to adopt such a 
course, if it .eem to him right. “So act that thine action might 


be made a universal law” is a particularly applicable principle 
in this connection. 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 89 


the plan of religious instruction suggested above. 
Whether the beliefs and histories of other religious 
groups can be fairly presented will depend largely on 
the type of teachers which the religious school is able 
to command. Nor is it necessary to state exactly at 
what age, or stage in the religious education of the 
child such presentation should be made. These and 
similar matters concerning the curriculum of the re- 
ligious school must be left to the judgment of who- 
ever is in charge. What I would insist upon is the 
principle that the child ought learn about religions 
other than its own. 

But while I cannot deal with the minutiz of the 
course of religious instruction, there is one question 
on which it is necessary to dwell. That is the ques- 
tion of confirmation. It is the custom among Liberal 
Jewish religious schools to have a yearly service at 
which those girls and boys who have reached a cer- 
tain age, usually between thirteen and fifteen, and 
who have been prepared by successive years of re- 
ligious school training, are confirmed, that is, make 
public confession of their belief in God, and swear 
eternal devotion and loyalty to their religion. But 
though this ceremony is one bound up with the his- 
tory of the reform movement in Judaism, it seems to 
me to be neither wise nor right. I believe it is out 
of harmony with the dominant spirit of religious life, 
and that in its present form at least it ought to be 
abolished. 


The article on confirmation in the Jewish Ency- 


90 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


clopedia ® says in part: “It does not mean initiation 
into the faith or admission into the Jewish community, 
but is a solemn declaration of the candidates, after 
having been sufficiently instructed in their duties as 
Jews—to be resolved to live as Jews and Jewesses.” 
And again, speaking of the various forms of the con- 
firmation service, “Thus some introduce a formal 
confession of faith, while others prefer a statement 
of principles.” 

Now could anything be more absurd than a “con- 
fession of faith” by a child of fourteen or fifteen, or 
a “‘statement of principles” or a “‘solemn declaration” 
of loyalty to Judaism? ‘True, these can very easily be 
elicited. During these years the child is in an im- 
pressionable state and can easily be led to believe 
that what it says is of a binding character. But it 
is a tragic mistake to use or to misuse the malleabil- 
ity of the child’s religious conceptions in this way. 
Just when the adolescent period of struggle and doubt 
is about to grip the child, it is the height of unwis- 
dom to exact or even to accept from it a confession 
of faith or a statement of principles. The difficulties 
of the years to follow will not be made éasier thereby. 
The child will not be satisfied, when its soul is seeking 
and questioning after religious truth to know that 
it has been “confirmed.” For what young man or 
woman will or should consider the vows and confes- 
sions made at so early an age as binding? 

It is, moreover, the gravest misunderstanding of 

Vol. IV, p. 220. 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION oF 


the principles of pedagogy to attempt to give “‘stabil- 
ity” to the child’s belief at this age. It is the period 
of growth, of change, of a new outlook on every fun- 
damental problem of life. Work, play, the relations 
between the sexes, the meaning and place of religion 
in life, all these conceptions may, in the years fol- 
lowing confirmation, be radically changed. To at- 
tempt in any one field to prevent such a change is ut- 
terly impossible. We do not desire a statement from 
children as to their life calling at the age of fourteen! 
We should be shocked if the choice of a partner in 
marriage were required or permitted at this time. 
Yet without the slightest hesitation religious teachers 
allow and encourage children, admittedly far too 
young to decide other important questions for them- 
selves, to pledge lifelong allegiance to God, to Juda- 
ism, and to the principles on which it rests!‘ It is 
absurd. It is contrary to all that science and thought 
and feeling teach. Confirmation at this age is nothing 
less than a violation of the sacredness of childhood. 

There is yet another reason, perhaps even more 
cogent, why the confirmation service ought be abol- 
ished. It is urged by those who admit the impos- 
sibility of confirmation for children of fourteen and 
fifteen, that at a later age, perhaps between the ages 
of sixteen and eighteen, when the period of storm and 


7Let it not be imagined that it is proposed to prevent the 
child at this age from thinking and discussing with its teachers 
concerning these problems of the religious life. It is fitting that 
it should do so. But progressive thought and instruction con- 
cerning these matters are very different from a confession of 
belief or of principles, whether publicly or privately made. 


92  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


stress is passing, there be such a service. I will not 
discuss the doubtful feasibility of this plan. I would 
point out, rather, that at this age, or at any age, 
public confirmation is opposed to the innate spirit of 
religion. The heart of my contention against con- 
firmation lies in the fact that it makes public an act, 
which by its very nature, ought to be of a private and 
a purely personal character. Public confirmation em- 
phasizes outwardness and show and ostentation in 
religion. Whereas the confirmation of the spirit must 
be made in silence and alone. 

This the child must be made to understand. And 
the child can understand it. With its yearning after 
the ideal, with the impressionability of its youth, the 
child, far better often than the adult, can be made 
to feel that the still small voice, the inner faith, is not a 
thing to be broadcasted in a parade of two minute 
“confessions,” designed chiefly to titillate the senti- 
mentality of admiring relatives and friends. The 
child soonest of all will feel, if it be but given the 
chance, that the trappings and show of religious exer- 
cises, must in the highest interest of religion be 
brought to an irreducible minimum. The child 
(who, it is said, desires so much the public service of 
confirmation) will be the readiest, if touched by a fine 
spirit, to forego a ceremony so out of keeping with 
the essentially simple and inner spirit of faith. Can 
as much be said for the elders of the child? 

It were foolish however to overlook the fact that 
some ceremony is necessary at this period in the re- 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 93 


ligious education of the child. Some point in the 
development of its religious school activity towards 
which the child may strive, and which will mark a 
certain achievement in its religious training, will 
prove helpful as a stimulus to the child’s interest. The 
nature of what that function should be can best be 
described as an exercise of graduation, very similar 
in many respects to the graduation exercises of a 
secular school. The purpose of it shall be to give 
evidence not of future faith or belief, but of past 
attainments in the field of learning. And if any re- 
ligious “view” is to be expressed by the child, that 
view is not to be in the spirit of a promise of adher- 
ence, of “lifelong devotion” to Judaism, but is rather 
to voice the desire to live well, to live intelligently, 
to live helpfully, in the light of all the noblest teach- 
ings of the world. Nor is there to be confession of 
belief in God. If anything there is to be expressed 
the ardent will to find Him.* 


*On this subject see the paper on “The Religious Influences 
of Childhood upon Adolescence” by Rabbi Montague N. A. 
Cohen in the Yearbook of the Central Conference of American 
Rabbis. Vol, XVII, pp. 248-9. 


CHAPTER VII 
INTERMARRIAGE 


The teachings of a religion depend on the religious 
attitude underlying it. When that attitude is a wrong 
one, the teachings which are based on it are not likely 
to be good or wise. Liberal Judaism presents an 
example of what is meant. It has been shown that in 
several respects the attitude underlying Liberal Juda- 
ism is wrong, and it follows that some of the teachings 
which it offers are likely to prove false as well. 
Indeed it has already appeared upon examination 
that the greatly stressed conception of Israel’s mis- 
sion to the world, based neither on right ideals nor 
on a right reading of the facts of history, is a false 
one, and that in the highest interests of Judaism it 
must go. 

Another very serious problem confronting Liberal 
Judaism is the question of intermarriage, and what 
the attitude of Judaism ought to be towards those 
Jews who choose to marry outside the ranks of Israel. 
There is a generally “‘accepted teaching” on the part 
of Liberal Judaism concerning intermarriage; but by 
the term “accepted teaching” I do not mean to imply 

94 


INTERMARRIAGE 95 


that it has been accepted by all or most Jews who 
come in personal contact with the problem of inter- 
marriage, nor that it has helped in any very large 
degree in achieving a solution of the problem. What 
I do mean is that the teaching of Liberal Judaism con- 
cerning intermarriage has become standardized, that 
in the pulpits and from the platforms of Judaism 
there is heard an almost uniform doctrine. That doc- 
trine must be carefully examined for it rests on prin- 
ciples which are in many respects unsound, the 
acknowledged principles of Liberal Judaism to-day, 
and like some other doctrines of our faith it may 
prove to be unsound and no longer tenable. If it does 
so prove, neither the universality with which it is held, 
nor the power of the tradition behind it, will avail 
it aught. 

That the question of intermarriage is a most im- 
portant one it is hardly necessary to explain. That 
it is recognized as such is witnessed to by the amount 
of discussion which it has occasioned; although in 
recent years discussion about the problem has lapsed 
more and more into the statement of the now recog- 
nized teaching of Liberal Judaism concerning it. But 
while uniformity of doctrine on this point has grown 
with the years, that uniformity has neither checked 
nor diminished the number of marriages between 
Jews and non-Jews to any appreciable degree—yet 
to check and diminish their number has been the 
avowed object of Liberal Judaism. Something is 
clearly wrong, but whether the fault lies with the 


96  LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


teaching of Judaism or with the Jews to whom it is 
supposedly taught, is not so clear. 

When the founders of Liberal Judaism proclaimed 
their belief that the Jews were not a race but a re- 
ligious brotherhood, and that a return to Palestine 
was not the aim of modern Judaism, but that its aim 
was to seek to spread the truths of Judaism in all 
places where Jews might live, they hoped they had 
solved the age-old difficulty of the politico-social status 
of the Jew in the land of his adoption; and the even 
more difficult and delicate problem of the relations 
between the Jew and his non-Jewish neighbors. The 
Jew, they declared, was to consider himself, and to 
be considered, as a citizen of the land in which he 
lived, having just the same rights and duties as any 
other citizen, and as being not a whit less loyal than 
others in his devotion to his country. The Jew, it 
was further said, was to take part in the development 
of the country in which he lived, and to make every 
contribution in his power towards its civic and cul- 
tural advancement. In short, as far as his citizen- 
ship was concerned there was to be no difference be- 
tween the Jew and other members of the state.* 

+The difference between the old and the new Judaism can be 
seen, even though greatly exaggerated, in the bombastic utterance 
made by the first reform Rabbi in America, who in the course 
of the dedication of his synagogue said: “This country is our 
Palestine, this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our tem- 
ple.” (Quoted in Philipson’s “The Reform Movement in Juda- 
ism,” p. 467.) It must be added in fairness, however, that this 
was not the spirit of the wisest or noblest among the leaders of 


the Reform movement. They were facing a serious problem, 
the status of the Jews in the various countries in which they 


INTERMARRIAGE ie 


Only in the realm of religious belief and worship 
was the Jew to be marked off from others. Only in 
his adherence to the teachings of the Hebrew prophets 
and to the Mosaic law was he to be different from 
his non-Jewish neighbors. And as the reformers in- 
terpreted that law and those teachings, there was 
nothing in them to prevent social intercourse on the 
friendliest of terms between Jew and non-Jew. (In- 
deed the points of similarity and identity between the 
two groups were stressed almost ad nauseam and the 
efforts of some Jews, under the spell of this sort of 
teaching, to ape and imitate the customs and habits 
of those around them, form one of the sorriest chap- 
ters in Jewish history.) In accordance with what they 
believed to be the mission of Israel, the early reform- 
ers held that such friendship and interchange of ideas 
were not only permissible, but even desirable and nec- 
essary. For in what other way, they asked, could the 
world come to know of the message which Israel had 
been chosen to bring? 

These early reformers were not slow to see how- 
ever that there were certain practical difficulties with 
which their teachings would have to cope. For the 
theory of the underlying similarity of Jew and non- 
Jew,” and the doctrine that social and intellectual 
lived, and in the main they dealt with the problem with utmost 
wisdom. 

*,No phrase was to be heard on the lips of reform Jews more 
often than the words of Malachi: “Have we not all one father? 
Hath not one God created us?” words -which were interpreted 


to demonstrate the essential unity between the children of Israel 
and others. 


98 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


intercourse between the Jew and the world without 
was desirable, led to events of which the reformers 
did not approve. Chief among these was the increase 
in the number of marriages between Jews and non- 
Jews. That this should occur was inevitable. With 
all the barriers to social intercourse down which it 
lay in the power of the reformers to destroy, with the 
increased facility of meeting between young Jews 
and Christians, it was but natural that a certain num- 
ber of marriages between members of the two faiths 
should take place. But as the number of such mar- 
riages increased, the reformers felt that it was neces- 
sary for Liberal Judaism clearly to define its attitude 
towards the whole problem. 

At first a certain amount of toleration was shown 
towards intermarriage, as evidenced by the resolution 
passed on that subject by the Brunswick Conference 
of 1844. But as time went on and as it appeared 
that when intermarriage occurred the Jewish party 
to it usually became defiliated from the Synagogue, 
and that the children of such marriages were seldom 
reared in the Jewish faith, leaders of the reform 
movement came gradually to oppose it and to state 
with more or less uniformity that it was contrary to 
the teachings of Liberal Judaism; and that, while 
the Synagogue recognized the validity and the bind- 
ing character of such marriages, it opposed their 
being made, and would take no part in solemnizing 
them. 


This opposition was based on two grounds. (1) It 


INTERMARRIAGE 22) 


was held that intermarriage would tend to disinte- 
erate Judaism, to weaken the bonds of Jewish 
solidarity, and thus to interfere with the effective per- 
formance of Israel’s mission to the world. (2) Mar- 
riage between members of two different religious 
groups was bound, it was asserted, to bring in its train 
discord and unhappiness, and that as such marriages 
could not even approximate to the high Jewish ideal 
of what marriage should be, it could not be sanctioned 
by Liberal Judaism. 

On both grounds intermarriage was condemned. 
There was however one way in which, it was held, 
a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew could be 
recognized by the Synagogue. That way consisted in 
the conversion of the non-Jewish party to Judaism. 
This, it was said, would eliminate both objections. 
There would, strictly speaking, be no intermarriage. 
Such conversion would, it was argued, unite both 
parties in their devotion to Judaism, and would do 
away with the danger of an imperfect union because 
of religious differences.* And as the conception of a 
Jewish race or nation had been abandoned, there was 
no objection possible to the admission of any person 
into the Jewish religious fellowship. 

This is the attitude of Liberal Judaism toward the 
problem of intermarriage, an attitude which seems to 


*It is well to note that this attitude was not universally ac- 
cepted, and that some Liberal Jews held that even when con- 
version occurred, intermarriage was a most undesirable event 
because such conversion would, of necessity, prove meaningless 
and evanescent. But this point of view was, and is held by but 
the fewest of Liberal Jewish teachers. 


100 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


me to be fundamentally wrong. Not only the reasons 
advanced against intermarriage, but the suggested 
solution of the problem, in and through the conver- 
sion of the non-Jewish party, are utterly at variance 
with the underlying principles of religion and are 
false to the ideal which Judaism ought to cherish. 
The thesis of all the foregoing chapters has been that 
the purpose of religion is to help the individual to 
live well, and to live well in his own way, and that 
religion must not be forever seeking to preserve itself 
at any cost. The position of Liberal Judaism to-day 
in regard to intermarriage inverts both these under- 
lying principles, and it is necessary to examine a little 
more closely the arguments on which its position is 
based. 

The argument that, because intermarriage will 
prove harmful to Judaism and will tend to disinte- 
grate it, it is to be discountenanced by Judaism, is not 
sound. Because, priceless though Judaism may be, 
its prolonged existence must not be purchased at the 
cost of the right of the individual Jew, in matters 
such as this, to be himself. For that right, if clearly 
understood, will be seen to underly Judaism itself, 
to be the cornerstone upon which the edifice of Juda- 
ism has been reared, and on which it must continue 
to rest. Disapproval of intermarriage, based on the 
ground that it will hurt the Jewish cause, loses sight 
of the personal character of the problem under con- 
sideration. So intensely personal is that problem 
that, even though the belief of David Einhorn that 


INTERMARRIAGE 101 


“TIntermarriage is the nail in the coffin of Judaism” 
were proved to be correct, Judaism would not be jus- 
tified in demanding of individual Jews that they do 
not intermarry. It must be remembered, to para- 
phrase the word of Jesus about the Sabbath, that 
religion is made for man, and not man for religion. 
And opposition to intermarriage which is based on 
the harm which it may do to Judaism, places the indi- 
vidual in a position of subordinate importance to 
religion, a position which, from the religious point of 
view itself, is clearly impossible. 

Nor is the demand sometimes made by Liberal 
Jewish teachers justifiable, that the Jew make the sac- 
rifice of giving up the contemplated marriage with a 
non-Jew, as an evidence of religious devotion, and as 
a laudable example of self-denial. For the contem- 
plated marriage implies that both persons have de- 
cided that they are fitted and fated to live together, 
to become man and wife, and that it is vitally neces- 
sary to them that they do so. And once two people 
come to feel about each other in this way (and unless 
they do there ought be neither marriage nor inter- 
marriage) they owe no duty to religion or to family 
or to friends which would prevent their union. Their 
duty is to themselves and to each other! No one, 
whether it be parent or religious teacher, the home or 
the Synagogue, has the right to demand the sacrifice 
which renunciation of one another’s love would imply 
for each. There is a certain limit beyond which self- 
sacrifice may not decently be asked to go. For, en- 


102 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


nobling though it ofttimes be, sacrifice may, at times, 
be less of a virtue than a fault. 

Taken on its own merits, however, the opposition 
to intermarriage on the ground that it will cause the 
disintegration of Judaism does not seem to be 
valid. Apart from the religious teachings of Judaism 
on the subject of intermarriage, there is a marked 
endogamous tendency among Jews, a tendency to 
marry among themselves, which, I believe, is far 
stronger and more generally prevalent than the ten- 
dency to marry members of another faith. It is 
true that there has in recent years been an increasing 
number of intermarriages, but are not many of them 
due to the reaction from the long centuries of enforced 
Jewish marriages, the inevitable rebound from the 
over strict tribalism of long ages? 

That rebound, however, has in Western lands at all 
events, already spent the greatest part of its force, and 
although a certain number of intermarriages will un- 
doubtedly continue to occur it will not be long before 
the percentage of such marriages will become stabil- 
ized by the counteractive tendency—the tendency of 
the Jew to marry within the Jewish group. In the 
terms of modern psychology, the subconscious inhibi- 
tions surrounding intermarriage will gradually be 
removed, and the desire to intermarry will weaken 
and not strengthen, in inverse proportion as those 
inhibitions disappear. Although I would not offer 
this as the chief reason (there are far weightier ones) 
why the opposition of Judaism to intermarriage ought 


INTERMARRIAGE 103 


be abandoned, I would suggest that it may help to 
allay the fears of those Jews who, like Einhorn, read 
in the percentage of intermarriages recorded in 
Western lands the destruction of Judaism. Those 
fears, as I believe, are hysterical in character, having 
no basis in the actual facts. 

The second reason on which is based the opposition 
to marriage between Jews and non-Jews is that such 
marriage must inevitably fall far short of the Jewish 
ideal of what marriage ought to be, and that in sanc- 
tioning it Judaism would be disloyal to its high ideal. 
The argument has been ably propounded by the Rev. 
Dr. S. Schulman, who says: *- “There could not be 
that complete union of souls, and there could not be 
that perfect harmony and unity of household between 
two people who hold with serious conviction dif- 
ferent views of religion.” In that statement there 
is a certain amount of truth, and if instead of saying 
that “there could not be” this perfect union, it were 
stated that such union inevitably becomes more dif- 
ficult of achievement, I should be prepared to accept 
it. For there is little doubt that differences in belief 
do make it far more difficult to achieve the perfect 
harmony which marriage implies, if it is to fulfill the 
high ideal of what marriage can and ought to be. 
Such differences clearly do make the task more 
difficult, and should be pointed out to people who 


*Cf., his paper on “Mixed Marriages in Their Relation to the 
Jewish Religion,” pp. 317 ff. in the Yearbook of Central Con- 
ference of American Rabbis, Vol. XIX. 


104 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


contemplate such a marriage, but the difficult must 
not be confused with the impossible. Far greater 
difficulties have been overcome by the power of love. 

But even though the statement of Dr. Schulman be 
correct, with this modification, it is not a valid argu- 
ment either against intermarriage or for the opposi- 
tion of Liberal Judaism to it. Closely examined and 
_applied to conditions as they exist, it serves rather to 
explain most clearly why Judaism has no right to op- 
pose the marriage of Jews to members of other faiths, 
on the ground of probable marital infelicity. It is 
said that two persons “who hold with serious convic- 
tion different views of religion” will not attain happi- 
ness in marriage. But granting that this were 
unconditionally true, it would not serve to condemn 
intermarriage to-day because, while it may not be 
pleasant to reflect upon, the fact is that most young 
Jews and Jewesses, and particularly those who con- 
template marrying outside the ranks of Judaism, do 
not hold views on religion with serious conviction! 

It is not necessary here to consider the problem 
of the non-Jew who contemplates intermarriage. I 
am dealing with the Jewish aspect of the question. 
And the average young Jew, even though he may have 
been trained religiously in a Jewish school, and 
though he or his parents may be members of a Syna- 
gogue, is not likely to hold any views either on Juda- 
ism or on religion in general, which are so different 
from the views of a non-Jew as inevitably to cause un- 
happiness in the home. Even when the Jew does feel 


INTERMARRIAGE 105 


his Jewishness distinctly, it is in the rarest instances 
that his Jewish beliefs play so important a part in his 
life that, unless they were shared by another, he would 
be deeply unhappy. 

It is true that a community of interests and an un- 
derlying sympathy in outlook and belief are neces- 
sary for a marriage that is to be a perfect union. But 
the fact must be faced that his Judaism no longer 
determines the fundamental outlook and belief of the 
Jew. If it did Liberal Judaism would be justified in 
refusing to sanction intermarriage. But it does not. 
The young Jew or Jewess of to-day may, and usually 
does, hold very serious convictions. But those con- 
victions are not convictions about religion. And this 
fact Liberal Judaism must recognize. It serves no 
good purpose to protest that intermarriage must lead 
to unhappiness because of grave differences, when 
those differences have ceased to exist! The argu- 
ment advanced to justify the opposition of Liberal 
Judaism to intermarriage proves to be the strongest 
reason why such opposition can no longer be main- 
tained. 

In the attitude of Liberal Judaism toward the prob- 
lem of intermarriage there is another factor, and that 
is the solution it offers. In those cases where inter- 
matriage does take place, that solution consists of the 
conversion to Judaism of the non-Jewish party to the 
marriage. But like the opposition of Liberal Juda- 
ism to intermarriage, this solution is hopelessly out of 
harmony with what should be the underlying spirit 


106 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


of religion. It has been shown that the attitude of 
opposition to intermarriage is not a justifiable one, 
and there remains therefore little need of dealing at 
great length with the proposed solution of a difficulty 
which does not exist. Regarding such conversions it 
may however be pointed out, that when they do take 
place they are not likely to be of a very deep or pers 
manent kind. They must obviously be made in a 
period of intense emotional stress, the period im- 
mediately preceding marriage, and they can hardly 
be expected to have any very real or lasting effect. 

On the contrary, after a time the converted person 
is more than likely to feel a sense of irritation and 
grievance against the religion which summarily de- 
manded adherence in so short a time, and whatever 
statements were made by the converted person will 
have little more meaning than statements exacted from 
prisoners under torture. The parallel may be neither 
fortunate nor exact, but the psychological conditions 
and reactions are similar in both cases. Liberal Juda- 
ism must recognize this and must realize that ““The 
loose and easy conversions that are often performed 
for the sake of intermarriage add no strength to the 
Jewish cause.” ° 

But even if a real pre-marital conversion were pos- 
sible it ought not be attempted by Judaism. Such con- 
version requires the surrender of the religious indi- 


°Of., paper on Intermarriage, by Rabbi Mendel Silber, deliv- 
ered before the Central Conference of American Rabbis and 
published in the Year Book, Vol. XVIII. 


INTERMARRIAGE 107 


viduality of one member to the marriage. And there 
is no valid reason why that surrender ought be re- 
quired of the non-Jew any more than of the Jew. If 
Liberal Judaism were as concerned, as it lays claim 
to being, about the ideal of marriage, it would recog- 
nize the unwisdom and the injustice of asking one 
party to a marriage to abjure that which it insists that 
the other party retain and cherish. If Liberal Juda- 
ism really cared to ensure at least a reasonable likeli- 
hood of happiness in the marriage of a Jew with a 
member of another faith, it would respect and seek to 
safeguard the religion of the non-Jew just as much as 
the religion of the Jew. It would realize that the 
surrender of the religion of one party to a marriage 
sets the whole marriage relation on a wrong footing 
from the very outset, and that no good purpose is 
served by insisting that the non-Jewish party to the 
marriage accept something which at the time must 
necessarily be alien. 

Upon examination, then, the objections raised by 
Liberal Judaism against intermarriage appear to be 
groundless, and the solution of the problem which it 
offers no solution. If, however, the attitude of oppo- 
sition and categorical disapproval is wrong, and is 
to be abandoned, something must be offered to 
take its place. For intermarriage occurs very fre- 
quently among Jews, and Liberal Judaism must define 
anew its attitude towards it. Shall approval take the 
place of the old attitude of disapproval, and if not 
one of approval what shall the new attitude be? 


108 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


As in the other questions which have been consid- 
ered, the teaching of Judaism in regard to intermar- 
riage will be determined by the religious principles 
on which Judaism is held to rest. And to Judaism 
based on the principles laid down in these chapters, 
intermarriage must necessarily seem perfectly permis- 
sible and in no way to be condemned. It is not im- 
plied that every marriage between a Jew and a non- 
Jew would be approved of by Judaism. (Such ap- 
proval would depend on individual circumstances just 
as in the case of marriage between Jews). But in 
the theory of intermarriage, in intermarriage itself 
there is nothing to which objection can, or ought, 
be made by Liberal Judaism. It is necessary to ex- 
plain a little more fully just what is meant. 

I have said that the purpose of religion is to help 
men to live well, and that the aim of Judaism must 
be to help Jews to live well. Intermarriage does not, 
as has been urged against it, impair the possibility 
of happiness or right living for the individual, and it 
may well help the individual to achieve these ends. 
For this reason Liberal Judaism must abandon its 
opposition to it, and substitute therefor an attitude 
of complete tolerance and sympathy towards those 
Jews who choose to marry a member of some other re- 
ligious group. It must be recognized by Judaism that 
if a Jew or Jewess has come deeply to care for a 
non-Jew, it is the highest duty of Judaism, regardless 
of the effect which a marriage between such indi- 
viduals may have on church or synagogue, to further 


INTERMARRIAGE 109 


and not to hinder their union. The attitude of Juda- 
ism must be one of stimulating and encouraging the 
individual to follow his or her own highest nature 
in arriving at a decision concerning marriage. And 
that encouragement and stimulus must neither be with- 
drawn or lessened even where they might lead the Jew 
or Jewess to a union with a member of another faith. 
If such the event should prove, there is every reason 
why that union ought to be consecrated. There is no 
valid reason why it should be prevented. 

There is one further aspect of the problem of inter- 
marriage on which it is necessary briefly to dwell. Al- 
though the general attitude of Liberal Judaism has 
been one of opposition to intermarriage, there have 
been some Jews who have urged that intermarriage is 
not only permissible, but that it is both desirable and 
necessary, and that, far from opposing it, Liberal 
Judaism ought to give it recognition and encourage- 
ment. The grounds for this view are two. First it 
has been held that by means of intermarriage the in- 
fluence of Judaism would be widened and that it 
would eventually be adopted throughout the world. 
And since this was the acknowledged aim of Judaism, 
it ought welcome the aid which intermarriage could 
bring to it.© The other argument advanced in favor 


*Intermarriage, favored for this reason, is based, of course, 
on the supposition that conversion of the non-Jewish party to 
the marriage will take place. Such conversion, however, Juda- 
ism has no legitimate right to demand or to expect. For a 
statement of the position of those Liberal Jews who favoured 
intermarriage see the “Jewish Times,” Vol. I, re the controversy 
between Einhorn and Samuel Hirsch. 


110 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


of intermarriage is that, if it were to take place on a 
large enough scale, it would put an end to anti- 
Semitism and to the persecution of the Jews, as there 
would in time be Jewish members in every non-Jewish 
family and vice versa. 

It is hardly necessary to go into the details of either 
of these plans, or to question their possible results. 
But it is necessary to point out the underlying fal- 
lacy of the conception behind them. The fallacy is 
the same as that which has appeared in the arguments 
advanced against intermarriage. It has been forgot- 
ten in both cases that marriage and intermarriage are 
alike purely personal matters, and that religion can 
adopt no one attitude toward the problem, whether of 
approval or disapproval. It would be just as unjus- 
tifiable for Judaism to counsel or to insist that Jews 
marry outside Judaism, as it is for Judaism to at- 
tempt to discourage and to prevent them from doing 
so. Either attitude implies a complete lack of under- 
standing both of the province of religious teaching 
and exhortation, and of the infinitely delicate mar- 
riage relation. 

Indeed in regard to this problem there can be no 
general attitude or rule or regulation. Judaism must 
realize that its own interests have no place in this, 
the most personal of decisions which the individual 
is called upon to make. Judaism must neither frown 
upon nor yet advise intermarriage. Its duty is rather 
to attempt to make clear that intermarriage is a per- 
sonal problem, to be decided afresh by each indi- 


INTERMARRIAGE 111 


vidual who is faced by it. And it must also make 
clear that the decision is not to be made with the pres- 
ervation or propagation of Judaism in mind, but 
according to the best wisdom and thought and feeling 
of the persons involved.’ 


It has been urged by those who oppose intermarriage that 
where it occurs the children of such a union are in danger of 
being brought up without a knowledge of either parent’s re- 
ligion, and without religious education of any sort. There is no 
doubt that this sometimes happens and every individual con- 
templating intermarriage ought well to consider this aspect of 
the problem. And the religions of both the parties to such a 
marriage ought to point out to the individuals concerned their 
responsibility to the child and the duty of preparing and arrang- 
ing to meet that responsibility. 

It is also said that in the event of intermarriage the spiritual 
ideals of Judaism will be lost to the next generation. This 
fear does not seem to me to be justified. Ideals are not “lost.” 
Where they are a real factor in the individual’s consciousness, 
hey will remain and will be transmitted by the individual to his 
children, And while the ideals of the Jewish parent may lose a 
certain amount of their specifically Jewish quality and character, 
they will nevertheless persist in one form or another. And it is 
the ideal after all, not the quality of Jewishness attached to it, 
which is of greatest value. 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE PLACE OF JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 


For almost nineteen hundred years Jesus has been 
excluded from Judaism. His personality and his 
teachings alike have played no part in the inner life 
of the Jewish people. As far as any direct influence 
on Judaism is concerned, Jesus might never have lived 
and taught and died. Yet indirectly Jesus has deter- 
mined the whole course of Jewish history and Judaism 
has never been unmindful of his life. Christendom 
has made that impossible. The religions which have 
called themselves by his name have determined in one 
way or another the world history of Israel for more 
than fifteen centuries. No matter what interest, or 
lack of interest in Jesus, Judaism may have felt, 
Christendom never forgot for a moment the relation 
between them, and never allowed the Jew to forget 
that he and his children’s children must bear the re- 
sponsibility, and atone for the crime of Jesus’ death. 

It is not necessary here to do more than recall in 
passing the centuries of persecution and oppression, 
of suffering and shame, which have in truth “made 
the people of the Christ into the Christ of peoples.” 
But recalled they must be in order to understand the 

112 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 113 


tragic irony of fate, which has kept the Jew from lov- 
ing the person and knowing the prophecies of Jesus, 
and yet has wriiten his name in blood across every 
page of Jewish history. True it is that Judaism has 
had for centuries no desire to know aught of him 
whose name has been alike upon the tongue of per- 
secuting prelates and of the murderous rabble in the 
streets. For aught the Jew could see or was made to 
feel, there was not an iota of truth or goodness in the 
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. “By their fruits 
shall ye know them,” Jesus had said, and the only 
fruits of his teachings with which the Jew was 
familiar were violence and hatred and oppression. 
And, worst of all, masquerading under the name of 
Love! 

Nor was this the only reason why the Jew adopted 
an attitude of aloofness towards everything connected 
with the name and teachings of Jesus. Even had he 
desired to learn something about the Nazarene Jew, 
to discover why it was that the world looked on him 
as a divinity, there were reasons why he could not. 
Any word, every word, which the Jew wrote or spoke 
concerning Jesus was, and well he knew it, likely at 
any time to be turned terribly against him. Were 
the word one of praise, it would be seized on to help 
in converting other Jews to Christianity. Were it a 
word of disapproval or of censure, it might be fraught 
with the possibility of torture and of death for thou- 
sands. In silence lay the Jew’s only safety, and it 
is not to be wondered at that he avoided anything, in 


114 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


any way associated with the life and doctrine and 
death of Jesus. 

Half the Jews of the world still live under condi- 
tions such as these. To the millions of Jews in East- 
ern Europe the central figure of the Christian religion 
is still the dominating factor in Jewish suffering. But 
in Western lands this is no longer so. Despite tempo- 
rary flurries of medieval fanaticism, the prevailing 
spirit is one of liberalism and of tolerance. The Jew 
is able to follow his own religious beliefs without in- 
terference, and in consequence he is enabled to revise 
and to re-formulate his opinions about the religious 
beliefs of other groups. While the Christian world 
still holds that Jesus was uniquely divine, it no longer 
seeks to impose that conviction on others by means 
of the sword and of fire, and the Jew is free to find 
out for himself what it is in the life and teachings 
of Jesus that has so gripped the imagination of man- 
kind. The Jew is free to go to the sources of the 
life of Jesus instead of deriving knowledge about him 
from Christian creed and theology. 

How he will use this freedom remains to be seen. 
It may, for a time, be very difficult for him to ap- 
proach the subject in a way which will do it and him 
justice. Yet to those who feel that in the estrange- 
ment which has so long existed between Jesus and his 
people there is something deeply regrettable, who 
hold that there is very much in the teaching and life 
of Jesus which can be of inestimable value to the 
Jew even to-day, the hope must remain that some- 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 115 


how, and at some not too distant time, Jesus will be 
reclaimed by Judaism, and will assume the place 
which should be his in the minds and hearts of his 
fellow Jews. 

The objection may be urged that there is no real 
need to include the teachings of Jesus within the 
volume of Jewish lore, and that while his life may 
have been an inspiring one, and his doctrines, in part 
at least, forceful and true, Judaism stands in no need 
of them to-day. It may be urged that Judaism has 
gotten along very well for nineteen hundred years 
without Jesus, and that it can do without him in the 
future. This objection, I say, may be raised. But I 
cannot really believe that it will be. At all events it 
is not in keeping either with the teachings of Liberal 
Judaism or with the informing religious spirit of our 
times, and represents an attitude which is becoming 
far less common to-day than it has been in the past. 
It is not amiss however to recall the fundamental 
principle, emphasized earlier in this book, of the 
duty of Judaism to seek and to use whatever it is 
thought may prove of help to the Jew in living well. 
The Bible, it was there explained, is no longer to be 
the one religious text book of the Jew, but wherever 
a teaching is found which may serve the religious 
end it is to be utilized regardless of the source from 
which it may have been derived. 

This principle would in itself justify the inclusion 
of any great religious teaching as part of the teaching 
of Judaism. But in the case of Jesus there are further 


116 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


and far more cogent reasons for his inclusion within 
the company of those to whom the Jew may turn for 
spiritual guidance. Jesus is, after all, a unique figure 
in the history of the world, unique both in what he 
taught, and in what he was, and Judaism, if it is to 
serve the real needs of the Jew to-day, cannot ignore 
this master spirit. The appeal of Jesus, it has been 
justly said, is universal. He may not mean “all 
things to all men,” but to any man he may mean 
much. In his personality, as revealed by the gospels, 
there is something irresistibly appealing, something 
which touches answering chords in the hearts of men 
and women and children.’ Not the least of the 
tasks of Judaism to-day is to find out what this power 
is and how it can be adapted in order that it may give 
strength and inspiration and joy to the Jews of our 
generation. And it must never be forgotten that Jesus, 
world-figure that he has become, was a Jew, and that 
Judaism in seeking him out to-day is not taking to 
itself an alien or a stranger spirit, but is rejoicing 
once again to find and to love an older brother and a 
friend. 

Perhaps there is no phase of modern Judaism more 
interesting and important than the beginning, the very 
limited beginning, it has made toward the rediscovery 


*The power of appeal of Jesus is evidenced by the very dif- 
fering things which his life and teachings have connoted to 
different ages,—and to different men in any one age. ‘The 
details and the manifestations of the appeal have varied pro- 
foundly. But the appeal itself has remained constant in in- 
tensity and power. 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM LY 


of Jesus. Judaism is beginning to feel that in the 
life, in the teachings, in the suffering of this Jew 
there was somewhat utterly Jewish, utterly human, 
of which it would no longer remain in ignorance. 
The modern Jew, separated by centuries from Jesus, 
begins to feel a very real kinship with him; not with 
Jesus the Christ, not with the Jesus of supernatural 
miracles or of the resurrection, but with Jesus the 
Jew, with Jesus the man, with Jesus of Nazareth, who, 
in the word of Matthew “went about the land doing 
good.” 

Liberal Judaism has taken the first step. The 
ablest among its leaders have for some years insisted 
upon the essentially Jewish quality of the teachings 
of Jesus. Many of them have voiced their profound 
admiration for the man and for his teachings, and 
have rejoiced to claim him as a great Jew. They 
have insisted that Jesus was not alien to Judaism, but 
that he was one of, perhaps the greatest of, the great 
company of Hebrew prophets, and that both his life 
and teachings were in every way permeated by the 
spirit of Judaism at its highest. 

Liberal Judaism has advanced far in its attitude 
towards Jesus. But it has not gone far enough. 
While it has recognized Jesus as a great Jew, Liberal 
Judaism has stopped there. It has made no effort to 
re-include him, in fact as well as in theory, among 
the long line of Jewish teachers, whose lives and 
works so largely determine what Judaism is to-day, 
and whose histories are impressed by rabbi and 


118 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


teacher alike upon the Jewish consciousness.” Lib- 
eral Judaism admits freely that Jesus was a great 
ethical teacher, a teacher fully worthy of his fore- 
runners, the prophets. But it fails to examine into 
what made Jesus a great ethical and spiritual power, 
what the doctrines were which he taught, and which 
of them, when tested by the standards of our 
own religious conscience and consciousness, can 
be of help to Jews to-day. In other words Liberal 
Judaism admits that the personality of Jesus 
was a great and truly religious one, but it has 
so far failed to make use of that personality in 
shaping the lives and characters of the Jews of this 
generation. 

Centuries of silence and repression cannot be over- 
come in a moment, and it is not to be wondered at that 
Jews have been slow to apply to their own lives the 
lessons to be drawn from the teachings of Jesus. But 
the time has come when Jews living in Western lands 
can approach without fear the story of a Jew who 
came to preach the high gospel of love! The Jew 
to-day is ready to reclaim Jesus, to learn for himself 
what it is in the message of Jesus that has so appealed 
to all ages and in all lands, and to incorporate in his 


7It is true that Jesus is the subject of many sermons and 
lectures from Jewish pulpits and platforms. But the burden of 
the message of those who have dealt with the subject has been 
to prove that Jesus was a Jew, and never desired to be anything 
else. The attempt has never to my knowledge been made on 
the part of Jewish teachers, to consider with their fellow Jews 
just what the fundamental teachings of Jesus were and how 
they may be applied to the Judaism of the present. 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 119 


own life whatever of the teachings of Jesus seem to 
him good and true. 

In attempting to understand the personality and 
teaching of Jesus, the Jew possesses one important 
advantage over other peoples. Not only is he ac- 
quainted with the background out of which Jesus 
appeared, and without an understanding of which, 
Jesus can never be fully understood, but he can go 
directly to the man and to his work. He can brush 
aside, as of no importance for his purpose, the theo- 
logical veil which has so often hidden Jesus from 
those who sought to know him. The few can come 
to know the inspiringly simple man of the gospel 
narratives, and can afford to ignore the metaphysical 
and credal interpositions which have been placed 
between him and the world. Indeed the necessity for 
separating the history and teachings of Jesus from 
the history and teachings of organized Christianity, 
cannot be emphasized too strongly. And, despite fre- 
quent assertions to the contrary, that separation can 
and must be made. It is quite true that Christianity 
would be a meaningless phrase without the back- 
ground of the life of him who is believed to have 
been its founder, but that is no reason why the teach- 
ings of Jesus may not be studied and loved and fol- 
lowed, without any reference to the creed and dogma 
which were later founded upon them. 

Thus it will be seen at once that there are certain 
problems connected with the figure of Jesus which 
need not concern the Jew. For example, the whole 


120 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


question of his messiahship, of the unique incarna- 
tion in him of the spirit of God, of his perfection and 
sinlessness, and of his atonement and mediation for 
all men—all this the Jew can afford to ignore. Jewish 
scholars may and should deal with these problems in 
order to make clear the Jewish point of view in regard 
to the theological and eschatological questions in- 
volved. But to the Jew who wishes to know and to 
understand Jesus they are not of importance. The 
ideas involved in them can never be very meaningful 
to great numbers of Jews. For they seem neither 
necessary nor even plausible in the world which the 
Jew knows and in which he must live, and moreover 
they seem to him to be out of harmony with present- 
day life and thought and feeling. Nor can the Jew 
accept the argument that Jesus himself dealt with 
and stressed these ideas. In regard to them he will 
agree with Emerson that “The idioms of his language, 
and the figures of his rhetoric, have usurped the 
place of his truth.” 

Nor need there be any fear that there will be little 
or nothing left when the dogma and the creeds sur- 
rounding the figure of Jesus have been removed. 
Much will remain. Indeed all that is of real worth 
will still be left. There will, in truth, be no sub- 
tracting from the personality of Jesus in this process 
of dedogmatization. What in reality will take place 
will be the removal of what have come to be obstruc- 
tions and superfluous superstructures, the dogmas 
which obscure the true splendor of the radiant spirit 


=< 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 121 


of Jesus. And when these have been done away 
with (and to the Jew they need never be real obstruc- 
tions), there will remain the striking character, the 
inspiring history, and the sublime ethical teachings of 
the man.* 

Before examining the teachings of Jesus I would 
dwell briefly on his personality, and in what way it 
may help to serve the spiritual needs of the Jew to- 
day. It is evident of course that personality and 
teaching must be closely connected in the case of a 
figure such as Jesus. It is impossible to think, for 
example, of his noble doctrine concerning the out- 
casts and the pariahs of society, without remember- 
ing how he himself lived with them and was their 
friend. And it is equally impossible to think of the 
occurrences of his life and the tragedy of his death, 
without connecting them always with the message that 
he preached. 

But despite this obvious connection the gospels do 
give us, even though it be but in fragmentary and 
broken manner, the picture of an inspiring and in- 
spired personality, which, apart from all question of 
teaching or doctrine, commands respect and love. 
And to the Jew who would find in the history 
of Jesus a present help and strength, no starting 


*This view of Christian dogma concerning Jesus cannot, in 
fairness either to Jews or to Christians, be called the Jewish 
view alone. For it is also the view of great numbers of liberal 
Christians, who, as the conflict between the Modernists and the 
Fundamentalists shows, are trying to pierce through the screen 
which theology has erected, and to draw inspiration anew from 
the simple faith and noble personality of Jesus. 


122 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


point could be more appropriate than his luminous 
personality. 

Figures enough can be found in the Old Testament 
and throughout Jewish history that have been up- 
right and just and brave; prophets who like Jesus 
“preached righteousness in the great congregation,” 
but there is no figure in all history whose nature was 
so compact of sympathy and of courage and of kind- 
ness; who was as firm as he, and yet as gentle, and 
who like him ministered to men in tenderness and 
love. The Jesus who went about the land doing good 
can be recalled to-day to serve greatly in the shaping 
of the character of Jewish men and women. He can 
again be made a living force in stimulating our gener- 
ation to become, in some degree at least, like him. 
Nor must it be objected that his was a nature so far 
above that of most men, that it is one impossible to 
follow. We must not forget that even if men fail to 
live as he lived: 


“When the high heart we magnify, 
And the sure vision celebrate, 
And worship greatness, passing by, 
Ourselves are great!” 


In dealing with the teachings of Jesus which can be 
of real value to Jews living in our day, I cannot make 
it too clear that it is impossible here to discuss all 
of them, or to do full justice to those which I shall 
consider. No more can be done than to outline some 
of his greater teachings. They must be dealt with 
eventually with far more thoroughness and compre- 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 123 


hensiveness than they will be dealt with in this chap- 
ter. But a beginning must be made, and to this 
beginning I now turn. 

Before examining the teachings of Jesus, however, 
it is necessary to mention an attitude current among 
many Jews in regard to them. That attitude is one 
of refusing to admit that there is any originality in 
them. Jesus, it is said, taught nothing new, and made 
no original contribution to the fields of morals and of 
ethics. He only restated in a novel way, it is held, 
the truths which the Hebrew prophets had long since 
enunciated and the only contribution which he made 
was in the manner and not in the matter of what he 
taught.* That there is no truth in these assertions 
has been so abundantly proved that it is hardly neces- 
sary to answer them here. In many respects, it is 
true, Jesus did re-state the teachings of the prophets, 
and adapt them to meet the needs of his own time. 
But in addition he taught certain doctrines that were 
clearly his own, which are indelibly stamped with 
the originality of his own unique personality. To 
state that he did nothing more than to re-phrase the 
teachings of the prophets is as absurd as it would be 
to state that Amos did no more than to re-phrase the 


This peculiar view is not only the product of Jewish research 
and scholarship. There have been Christian writers and teachers 
not a few who in recent years have held the same opinion. Nor 
must it be imagined that all or even the best among Jewish 
writers have denied originality to the teachings of Jesus. In 
increasing numbers Jews are beginning to recognize that orig- 
inality—and to rejoice in finding it, instead of admitting it 
reluctantly. 


124 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


teachings of Elijah, and that Isaiah went not a step 
beyond Amos, except in the manner of his presenta- 
tion of the truth! The old and the new must always 
intermingle in every religious teaching, but it is as 
pointless to say that in the teaching of Jesus all is old 
and nothing new, as it is to say that all is new and 
nothing old. 

Among those teachings which Jesus emphasized in 
common with the prophets may be classed his insis- 
tence that inward piety was more acceptable to God 
than the trappings and the show of religious worship. 
And like the prophets Jesus emphasized the fact that 
worship of God was worse than a mockery unless it 
were founded upon justice in dealings between man 
and man. On these fundamental religious questions 
Jesus stood exactly where the prophets had stood 
before him.° 

In dealing, however, with the teachings of Jesus 
which are ethically and spiritually original, his dis- 
tinct contribution to the spiritual wealth of our world, 
it is impossible, I believe, to find any one underlying 
doctrinal unity running through them. Certain fun- 
damental points are stressed by Jesus again and again, 

* But even in regard to these questions there is in the teachings 
of Jesus something of real value. Although he was at one with 
his predecessors concerning them, he stood as it were upon their 
shoulders, and with keen vision he could see still further into 
the spiritual truths which they had glimpsed. And he taught 
moreover in a way, which if it missed something of the titanic 
grandeur of the prophets, surpassed them in warmth and human- 
ness, and in the power to make personal appeal. So that even 


where the teachings of Jesus coincide with those of the prophets, 
the Jew will find much in them which may inspire and guide him. 


te | ll i a a 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 125 


but these points are not brought into any sort of rela- 
tion with each other, which would justify one, on the 
basis of the gospels alone, in building up a system- 
atic religious philosophy, and attributing that phi- 
losophy to Jesus. There is no unified doctrine that 
Jesus taught.® 

It must always be remembered that Jesus dealt, not 
with theoretical morality, but with life. His words 
and thoughts, though they must have been deeply 
pondered over when he was alone, in the years before 
his active ministry began, were delivered to multi- 
tudes, in answer often to unexpected questions, and 
in a manner very much simpler than the ordered 
manner of closely reasoned theology. Jesus did not 
prepare his message (except, perhaps, the sermon on 
the mount) in the secluded closet of the scholar. He 
dealt with spiritual problems as they arose, and it is a 
sorry misunderstanding of his teaching to attempt to 
wring from his compelling and stirring words a con- 
sistent and consecutive religious philosophy. It can- 
not be done. The only real unity in the teachings of 
Jesus is to be found in the purpose that informed and 
underlay them all, the ever present will of Jesus to 
minister unto men, “to be about my father’s busi- 
ness.” That unity will then be pre-supposed and his 
teachings will be dealt with, in the only way in which 
they can intelligently be dealt with, that is separately. 


*Indeed one can point to numerous inconsistencies and even 
contradictions, but these will not lessen the value of the teach- 
ings that are good and true. 


126 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


Of the many doctrines of Jesus which may be called 
essentially his own, his teaching concerning the 
divinity of man seems to me the most important. Be- 
fore his time it had been shown that God stood in very 
close and loving nearness to human beings. But Jesus 
first insisted that in man himself, in man at his best, 
at his highest, the divine dwelt. Jesus it was who 
taught that every human being had within him at 
every moment of his life the potentiality of divine be- 
ing, that, if man would but will it, he could make 
himself as one with God. 

Nor must this fundamental teaching of Jesus be 
confused with the doctrine of Christianity concerning 
his unique divinity. As Emerson has explained: 
“Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of 
man. One man was true to what is in you and me. 
He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and 
evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his 
World. He said in this jubilee of sublime emotion, 
‘T am divine. Through me God acts; through me, 
speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee, 
when thou also thinkest as I now think.’ But what 
a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in 
the same, in the next, and the following ages! There 
is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be 
taught by the Understanding. The understanding 
caught this high chant from the poet’s lips, and said 
in the next age, “This was Jehovah come down out of 
heaven. I will kill you if you say he was a man.’ ” 7 


*Emerson’s Divinity Address. 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 127 


But because of the “distortion” which his teaching 
suffered its greatness must not be overlooked, and his 
insistence on the innate divinity of man remains an 
imperishable contribution to the religious outlook of 
the world. It is a doctrine which undoubtedly bears 
within it the seed of exaggerated mysticism, and if 
carried too far it may easily lead men away from a 
clear understanding of the facts of life, of the earthly, 
the material basis, on which the spiritual possibility 
here implied, depends. But it is a noble teaching 
none the less, a teaching which it will be well 
worth the while of Jews living to-day carefully to 
consider. 

Closely connected with his belief in the divine 
nature of man was the insistence of Jesus upon the 
worth and importance of the spiritual judgment of the 
individual. It was he who first insisted that the indi- 
vidual had the right, the duty, to speak out as he was 
moved, to oppose his own spiritual insight and judg- 
ment to the insight and judgment of the world. There 
are no words in all history more meaningful and 
moving than his oft-repeated “But I say unto you.” 
He, the single man, in defiance, not only of the powers 
and principalities of earth, but of tradition of re- 
ligious custom and of established belief as well, in- 
sisted upon the spiritual duty of speaking the truth 
as he saw it, upon “Pure passion’s high prerogative, 
to make, not follow precedent!” 

Dealing with this insistence of Jesus upon the val- 
idity of his own teaching, it is said in the article on 


128 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


his life in the Jewish Encyclopedia that, “The 
prophets spoke with confidence in the truth of their 
message, but expressly on the ground that they were 
declaring the word of the Lord. Jesus adopted equal 
confidence; but he emphasized his own authority apart 
from any vicarious or deputed power from on high.” ® 
Always in opposition to the phrase “It hath been said 
by them of old time,” is flung back the prophetic, 
“But I say unto you!” Truly in this word of Jesus 
lies the magna charta of the spiritual freedom of 
mankind. And in this teaching there is much by 
which the Jew of to-day can profit. It emphasizes 
what is of greatest importance in the spiritual life, 
the worth which must be ascribed to individual ethical 
insight; it emphasizes the right, the privilege of all 
men to be themselves, to follow their own conscience 
in accordance with their own best judgment. Traced 
through the life and the teachings of Jesus, this em- 
phasis on the right of the individual to face life’s 
problems in his own way, can inspire the Jew to dare 
to voice whatever of the spirit he feels speaking 
through him, and it can help to strengthen the Jew 
in the knowledge that one with God is always a. 
majority. 

Another problem with which Jesus dealt, and con- 
cerning which he made a strikingly original contribu- 
tion, is the problem of evil, and how evil may be 
coped with. It is impossible, in dealing with his 
teaching in this connection, to do better than to quote, 

* Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, p. 163. 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 129 


even if at some length the exposition of Felix Adler 
concerning it. Jesus he says, commands men to “Re- 
sist not evil, resist not oppression. Shall then evil 
triumph? Is the victim helplessly at the mercy of the 
injurer? Shall he even be told that in a servile spirit 
he must accept the indignities that are put upon him? 
No; this is not the meaning. Quite a different mean- 
ing is implied. And here the teaching of Jesus takes 
its novel turn. There is a way, he says to the victim, 
in which you can spiritually triumph over the evil- 
doer, and make your peace with irresistible oppres- 
sion. Use it as a means of self-purification; pause to 
consider what the inner motives are that lead your 
enemy, and others like him, to do such acts as they 
are guilty of, and to so violate your personality and 
that of others. The motives in them are lust, greed, 
anger, wilfulness, pride. Now turn your gaze in- 
ward upon yourself, look into your own heart and 
learn, perhaps to your amazement, that the same evil 
streams trickle through you; that you, too, are sub- 
ject, even if it be only subconsciously and incipiently, 
to the same appetites, passions, and pride, that ani- 
mate your injurers. Therefore let the sufferings you 
endure at the hands of those who allow these bad 
impulses free rein in their treatment of you lead you 
to expel the same bad impulses that stir potentially in 
your breast; let this experience fill you with a deeper 
horror of the evil, and prove the incentive to secure 
your own emancipation from its control. In this way 
you will achieve a real triumph over your enemy, 


130 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


and will be able to make your peace with oppres- 
sion.” ® 

Again concerning the command of Jesus to love 
one’s enemies, Adler says: ““To bless them that curse 
you, to bless them that despitefully use you, means to 
distinguish between the spiritual possibilities latent 
in them and their overt conduct, to see the human, the 
potentially divine face behind the horrible mask, and 
to invoke the influence of the divine power upon them 
in order that it may change them into their purer, 
better selves.” *° 

The next teaching of Jesus with which I would 
deal, has occasioned so much dispute and misunder- 
standing, and has become so much a matter of po- 
lemic and controversy, that it is with difficulty that 
one can come at the heart of what it contains. I refer 
to his teaching concerning love. And at once it must 
be said that in the words of Jesus, and in his spirit, 
there is to be found none of the antithesis of love and 
law, or love and justice, which has been so commonly 
attributed to him since the time of Paul. Dealing with 
the spirit of love and its place in life, he does not op- 
pose love to law in general, or to the law of Israel in 
particular, nor does he offer love in the place of jus- 
tice. True he emphasizes love as it had never been 
emphasized before, but love is to act through the law 
and through justice, and not to oppose them; it is to 
be the crown of justice, a transforming and a trans- 


®“An Ethical Philosophy of Life,” pp. 33 and 34. 
“Op. cit., p. 38. 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 131 


figuring crown. But no pseudo-interpretation or al- 
legorization is able to do away with the words, ““Think 
not that I am come to destroy the law of the prophets. 
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Jesus un- 
derstood that law and justice were always indis- 
pensable. But he insisted that beyond and above 
these, though based upon them, love must exalt men, 
love which is after all the very salt of life, the salt 
without which all life loses its savor. 

It must not be imagined that love had been neglec- 
ted in the Old Testament, or that Jesus gave the con- 
ception of love to the world. Jesus himself insists 
that the first and greatest commandment in the law 
is to love God, and that the “‘second is like unto it. 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The con- 
ception of the love of God and man was an old one. 
What Jesus did was to ascribe to it a new meaning 
and to emphasize an aspect of love which had not 
before his time been considered. I refer to the active 
aspect of love, in virtue of which, as Mr. Montefiore 
has said, “Love goes forth, and gives freely, and 
yearns to help and save, in virtue of which it seeks 
to succor and redeem the sinner, and is ever ready to 
renounce, to sacrifice and to endure. .. .”’ It is this 
aspect, or rather these qualities of love, which Jesus 
first clearly understood, and commended to mankind. 
It is an aspect which is still well worth the consider- 
ation of Jew and non-Jew alike. 

These are in broadest outline some of the teach- 
ings of Jesus which are essentially his own and es- 


132 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


sentially true, and which may prove to be of vital: 
help and inspiration to the Jew living to-day. But 
the question very naturally arises: if these teachings 
are in reality so fine and true, if they do represent 
such a great advance beyond the religious teachings 
of the prophets, and if Jesus verily does appear to 
be so luminous and inspiring a personality, why 
should not Jews accept the religious teachings of 
Jesus as a whole and follow them entirely? They 
would not have to become Christians or accept Chris- 
tianity. For as Lessing put it “Christianity has been 
tried for eighteen hundred years, but the religion of 
Jesus remains to be tried!”” Could and should not 
the Jew be the first to put it into practice? 

The answer to this question must be in the nega- 
tive. In the first place, it may be pointed out that 
noble and inspiring as many of the teachings of Jesus 
are, they do not contain the last word to be spoken 
in the fields of religion and ethics. That word it was 
explained has not been and cannot be spoken at any 
one time or by any one person, and the Jew must 
no more accept the religion of Jesus than he must 
accept the teachings of the Old Testament, as ade- 
quate to meet all his religious needs. Nor ought the 
acceptance by the Jew of the teachings of Jesus prove 
in any way inimical to his love for and loyalty to 
other Jewish teachers. The Ol dand New Testament 
(at least that part of the New Testament contained 
in the gospel histories of the life of Jesus) need 
not and ought not prove mutually exclusive. They 


JESUS IN MODERN JUDAISM 133 


ought rather supplement and complement each 
other.” ** 

The Jew cannot enroll himself as a follower of 
Jesus, because his teaching, inspiring and noble as it 
was, is not enough. It was pointed out in the chapter 
on The Outlook of Liberal Judaism that no past teach- 
ing, however fine, and no spiritual insight, however 
clear and true, are sufficient to meet the problems of 


the present; that the problems of to-day must in the / 
last analysis evoke to-day’s solutions. Thus the Jew 


cannot accept the teaching of Jesus as possessing such 
power and cogency that they can meet and solve his 
problems; and it would be a step backward to assume 
that his words and actions, any more than the words 
and actions of the seers of the Old Testament, are 
capable of supplying the Jew with a comprehensive 
spiritual chart or guide. 

The teachings of Jesus cannot alone solve the prob- 
lems of the Jew, nor can the Jew consider the word 
of Jesus to be the last or truest word in the spiritual 
progress of mankind. Yet his was a noble teaching 


417t must be made clear, however, that even together they can- 
not determine the whole spiritual outlook of the Jew to-day. 
Beside them there are other teachings and other religious doc- 
trines which, while they may be less inclusive than those of the old 
and New Testaments, may none the less serve and help the Jew 
to-day in the effort to live well. Plato and Marcus Aurelius and 
Epictetus, for example, had no knowledge of the writings which 
are included in the Bible and hence drew none of their own 
teachings from that source. But each of them contributed greatly 
to the spiritual wealth of the world. And in the works of each 
there are ethical doctrines which are lofty and inspiring and 
which in their own way may form a vital part of the equipment 
with which the Jew will attempt to face life’s problems. 


ee, 


134 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


and he spoke a blessed word. In them the Jew can 
and should find much that will light up the course of 
his own life, much that may inspire and stimulate and 
strengthen him to live that life in the spirit of Jesus 
himself, in the high and holy spirit of love. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 


In the preceding chapter I have tried to outline 
some of the problems which confront Liberal Judaism 
to-day, problems which it must frankly face if it is 
to remain a vital force in the lives of Jewish men 
and women. In regard to many of these problems 
it has been pointed out that the attitude and outlook 
of Judaism appear at present radically wrong, and 
that they must be greatly changed. In addition to 
those questions which have been dealt with there re- 
main others which have not been discussed. Among 
them are such problems as the place and value of 
ritual and religious tradition in the Judaism of to- 
day, and the very difficult question of what the rela- 
tion of Judaism and of American Jews ought to be 
in regard to Zionism, or more correctly, in regard to 
the Jewish National Homeland, now in the process 
of being reestablished in Palestine.t And _ besides 
these, there are numerous minor questions which have 
not been touched upon. 


+] have failed to deal with these two problems for quite dif- 
ferent reasons. In regard to the first, I believe that the point 
of view emphasized throughout is capable of being applied very 
simply to questions of ritual and tradition, and of their place in 
modern Judaism. It does not seem necessary to elaborate at 


135 


136 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


There remains one problem however which is of 
such great importance that it cannot be overlooked. 
I refer to the problem of the Jewish ministry, its 
general function, and its relation to the religious 
questions which have been discussed. That the rela- 
tion is a very intimate one will readily be appreciated. 
It will be seen to what a large extent the attitude of 
Judaism is the attitude of its ministers and teachers 
and leaders. “Like people, like priest” is an old 
proverb and a true one, but perhaps it would be even 
truer to-day to say “Like priest, like faith!” For it 
is the clergy of the great faiths of the Western world, 
who determine almost entirely the character of re- 
ligions in our day. While on the other hand there is 
the fact that the character of the ministry, whether 
Jewish or Christian, in our day does not determine 
the character of the people. A fine ministry no 
longer ensures a fine laity. On the contrary, I have 
known of instances not a few, where the average of 
goodness and fineness of members of a community 
has been above that of the ministers and priests who 
were supposed to be its spiritual guides.” 
any length upon the principle that ritual and tradition are to be 
retained and valued, only insofar as they prove meaningful and 
helpful to those Jews for whose spiritual development they are 
intended. 

As to the other question, the relation of Jews individually, 
and of Judaism as a whole to Palestine and to Jewish achieve- 
ments and aspirations there, I have not touched upon it because 
it does not seem to me to be essentially a religious question. 
And in this book I have attempted to deal only with problems 
of the religion of the American Jew. 


2'The reason for the lessening of the moral rapport between 
people and priest is to be found in the dissociation, which has 


eS Oe eee. 


THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 137 


But while the character of the ministry no longer 
determines the character of the lives of laymen to the 
great extent that it once did, there has grown up in 
recent years an increased dependence of the character 
of religion itself upon the ministry. When ordinary 
men and women were deeply concerned with the prob- 
lems, both theological and practical, of religion, they 
and the minister together determined what the char- 
acter of their faith should be, and, while the ministry 
influenced them in their religious beliefs and prac- 
tises to a large degree, they in their turn influenced it. 

But the interest in and zeal for religion on the 
part of members of churches and synagogues have 
in our own day flagged. Men and women have come 
to feel less keenly their responsibility in determining 
the character of their faith. And the responsibility 
and the power of determining it have come gradually 
to rest almost wholly upon the ministry. At all 
events that is the case with Liberal Judaism to-day. 
What it is and what it is to become depend almost 
entirely upon the rabbinate of America. Whether 
for good or ill, the indifference of the ordinary lay- 
man and laywoman to the vital problems of religion 
has placed in the hands of the Rabbi the greatest 
degree of power in determining the character of 
Judaism.? 
for years been growing up in the minds of educated persons, 
between nobility in the conduct of life, and religious observance. 
It is being perceived that the two need not go together, even 
though in so many cases they do. 


?To guide and direct the religious beliefs of the community is 
the natural task of the minister. But to-day the minister no 


138 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


In some senses it may be said that it is a very barren 
power which the rabbinate possesses, a power over 
the empty forms of religion, rather than over the lives 
and character of those to whom it seeks to minister. 
Yet that power is not wholly barren. Some Jews there 


are who still apply with earnestness and with con-— 


scious effort the dicta of Judaism to their own lives. 
And there are always the great number of children, 
whose religious training and spiritual inspiration 
depend largely upon the religious head of the com- 
munity. Because of them, and in the hope that it 
is not yet too late to bring the teachings of religion 
again into direct contact with daily life, it is neces- 
sary to determine what the attiude of the Jewish 
ministry ought to be in regard to the more important 
questions with which this book has dealt. 

It is unnecessary here to discuss the Jewish min- 
istry in its intimate workings, or the way in which 
it has served American Israel. Its virtues, and it 
has many, are in no danger of being overlooked. And 
concerning most of its faults the Jewish ministry is 
itself acutely conscious. (Although it is significant 
that one very sane and deeply Jewish person to whom 
these chapters were shown said in all seriousness, 
that the faults of the Judaism of to-day were not 
attributable to Judaism itself, but that almost uni- 
formly the case was one of right beliefs and doctrines 
longer seems to be leading and guiding the people. On the con- 
trary, ministers and laymen seem to be traveling and progressing 


upon entirely different planes, planes which do not even inter- 
sect, 


be- Ss 


THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 139 


being misread and mistaught by the wrong persons. 
To how large an extent this is true it would be difficult 
to decide, and not very profitable to discuss. I men- 
tion it only to make clear that a problem does exist, 
as to the real serviceableness of what has been at 
least a devoted rabbinate.) The problem to be dealt 
with may be stated as follows: What is the attitude 
of the ministry to be in regard to those questions of 
belief and conduct which are so vexed to-day? How 
and in what spirit is the minister to discharge his 
- function? * 

It is necessary at the very outset to recall once 
more the fundamental principle laid down in the first 
chapter of this book. That principle was that the 
purpose of religion is to help men to live well. Upon 
its acceptance or rejection will depend in largest part 
the attitude which the Jewish ministry will adopt. If 
the minister is to be concerned not so much with com- 
mending to men the religion of Israel in the hope that 
it may answer their spiritual needs, as in helping 
them to live well, no matter in what way, or at what 
cost to traditional Jewish beliefs, it will be seen that 
the function and the attitude of the ministry will 
necessarily undergo a great change. 

This change will perhaps appear most clearly in 
relation to the preaching and teaching of the min- 


*In all the questions dealt with in these chapters some refer- 
ence has been made to the necessity for a change in attitude on 
the part of the Jewish ministry. What I wish here to do is to 
find some broad underlying principles of outlook and attitude 
which shall characterize the teachings of the rabbinate in America. 


140 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


ister on ethical problems. His aim will no longer be 
to commend to the souls of his hearers one particular 
standard or law of life. He will rather attempt to 
stimulate them as individuals to form their own stand- 
ards according to their own best judgment and the 
highest law of their own being. This does not mean 
that the minister is not to express his own convictions 
as strongly as he desires or that he is to abate by one 
whit the ardor with which he champions what he 
conceives to be the moral law. What it does mean 
is that the minister will no longer present the doc- 
trine which he preaches and the beliefs which he 
upholds, as the one and only means of salvation for 
all individuals. Instead he will offer his own faith, 
or the faith of Judaism as he understands it, that those 
who hear him may know what that faith is, that they 
may compare it with their own beliefs, and that they 
may apply whatever in it seems of worth to their 
own lives. 

Similarly in the fields of dogma and of creed, the 
minister is not to attempt to impose either his own 
beliefs or the traditional beliefs of Judaism upon 
his hearers. Problems such as the existence of God, 
the character of God and the immortality of the 
soul, must not be dealt with as if there were one 
solution which it is the business of the minister to 
expound. ‘There exists to-day among all groups a 
wide divergence of beliefs touching these questions. 
Men and women hold very different opinions on 
them, opinions which are often radically different 


THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 141 


from the opinions of past generations, and from the 
contemporary teachings of most religions. And these 
men and women will not, and should not, tolerate a 
dogmatic assertion of belief by ministers. Despite 
dogmas of church and synagogue there can be no one 
single answer, capable of satisfying all men, to the 
great questions concerning God and the human soul. 
And men are beginning to realize this. 

The ministry of the future will deal with questions 
of belief, just as with questions of ethics. The his- 
toric conceptions of them will be expounded and made 
clear. The personal belief of the minister will be 
presented by him, as his own personal belief, and then 
the men and women to whom he speaks will be urged 
to consider and to weigh the matter for themselves, 
and to arrive in their own way at their own decisions. 
Nor will ministers falter or repent in this attitude, 
even when it appear that the conclusions reached by 
those to whom they speak differ from their own, or 
from the dogmas which their religion has always 
cherished. 

An example of this new attitude of the ministry 
is to be found in an address, recently delivered by a 
great preacher in New York on the subject of immor- 
tality. Beginning with a frank admission of the im- 
possibility of any scientific proof or any definite or 
certain knowledge on the subject, he goes on to affirm 
his own unshaken belief in immortality, and to ex- 
plain just how and why he holds that belief. And in 
concluding his address he makes clear that the belief 


142 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


which he cherishes so dearly, is one which many men 
cannot accept, and that therefore it is not and cannot 
be, in any sense, a final solution of the problem. 

This is the attitude which the ministry will adopt. 
It is an attitude which freely recognizes that uni- 
formity in creed is an impossible and an undesirable 
achievement, and which understands the value of 
doubts, and of difference of opinions. It so hap- 
pened that this man believed firmly that life does not 
end with death and so expressed himself; but even had 
he not held this faith, even had he doubted deeply 
concerning a future life, it would have been of just 
as much importance that he speak his thought to his 
people. It is not only as the protagonist of orthodox 
doctrine that the minister must speak to-day. If 
doubts and questions are in his own soul, then he 
must share those doubts and questions with his hear- 
ers. He must let their wonder feel that he has won- 
dered, and their doubt that he has doubted. 
Questionings and doubts are the very stuff of which 
the life of the spirit is made; they are a vital part 
of the life of thoughtful men and women. And the 
minister must not seek to hide this aspect of his 
being. Asa great American teacher put it, “The true 
preacher deals out to the people his life,—life passed 
through the fire of thought.” 

The function of the ministry is, then, not to be 
thought of in terms of perpetuating and inculcating 
certain ethical ideals and dogmas. Rather is it to 
consist in stimulating and inspiring the individual 


THE FUNCTION OF THE MINISTRY 143 


to formulate his own ideals and to arrive at his 
own beliefs. Indeed if there is any one religious 
point of view, or any one attitude, which the min- 
ister is to commend and to emphasize, it is the neces- 
sity of self-ministry. Individuals must be made to 
feel the importance of the command, Minister ye unto 
yourselves! For it is all-important. 

Our age is frankly individualist; perhaps even 
more individualist in tendency than in its present 
status. It marks the rise in place and power of the 
individual, in his relation to the family, to society, 
and to the state. And so it is in his relation to re- 
ligion. The individual has become to an unprece- 
dented degree its standard and its test. The indi- 
vidual’s needs and the way in which his needs are 
met are fast becoming the criterion of the value of 
his faith. The individual has become the sole judge 
of the spiritual values in his own life. He has become 
in large part and is becoming ever more his own 
minister. And the problem of religion to-day is how 
to induce the individual to accept consciously and 
earnestly the great responsibility which is his. Church 
and Synagogue have lost their power to regulate the 
spiritual values and ethical decisions in the lives of 
men. That power is now largely in the hands of the 
individual. It is a mighty weapon, a weapon which 
may be used either for good or evil. And it is a 
weapon which, if it is to be used for good, must be 
well understood. To make men understand how to 
use this weapon, is the chief function of the ministry. 


144. LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


In these days of changing power and of shifting 
values the ministry is called upon to aid the individual 
in preparing for the struggle which lies ahead. That 
struggle the individual must wage largely against 
himself. For the newly acquired duty of ultimate 
ethical decision concerning life will surely bring to 
pass a deep conflict of ideals within him. And upon 
ministers everywhere rests the responsibility of pre- 
paring man to face his problem. The minister can- 
not presume to decide that problem for the individual, 
and the minister can no longer take the burden of 
that problem upon himself. The individual alone is 
capable of solving it. But the minister can still, in a 
very real sense, be of service. He can instruct the in- 
dividual in the spiritual geography of the country to 
be traversed. He can point out the alternate goals 
towards which the individual may set his face, and, 
most important of all, he can, and must, make it 
absolutely clear that with the individual alone, the 
issue rests. 


POSTSCRIPT 


These chapters have been discussed with a number 
of persons who have criticised them with perfect can- 
dor and without reserve. Many of their suggestions 
have been incorporated without acknowledgment 
throughout these pages. Others I have felt forced to 
reject. But for all of them I am deeply and sincerely 
grateful. 

There are, however, three critical judgments on 
this work, which can neither be accepted wholly nor 
yet be completely ignored. Two of them deal with 
the fundamental thesis of the book; the third with a 
practical danger to which it may give rise. And each 
of them emphasizes so important an aspect of the 
problem, that there could be no better way of sum- 
marizing the content of what I have written than by 
rehearsing and dealing with these criticisms. 

The first questions the basic principle that the 
purpose of religion is “to help men to live well.” 
What, it is asked, is to be the definition of living 
well? What are the social implications of that term? 
To both queries I would make answer, first, that my 
object has not been to deal with the religious duty of 
the individual Jew, or to set forth the laws of conduct 
by which he is to shape his life. These are, of course, 

145 


146 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


alluded to, though indirectly. But the fundamental 
question with which this book seeks to deal, is the 
question of what ought be the attitude and obliga- 
tions of religion itself in relation to the individual 
and to society, rather than a discussion of the duties 
laid upon the individual by his religion. 

But though it was unnecessary to dwell on, or to 
amplify at great length, the definition of the term 
“living well,” it may make clearer the goal toward 
which religion is to strive, if what is meant thereby 
be briefly stated. By living well I mean the conscious 
effort of the individual to pitch his life upon the 
highest plane to which he feels capable of rising. 
More simply perhaps: An individual, to live well, 
must live according to the highest that he knows.* 
This implies both the fact of the consciousness within 
the individual of the possibility of moral decision, 
—of the reality of the choice between a better and a 
worse way of conduct, and, more important still, the 
belief that when that better way is surely felt and 
known the natural desire of the individual will be to 
follow it. 

As to the social implications of living well, I would 
say that these are inherent in any definition of that 
term. The individual verily is “an abstraction apart 
from society,” and no intelligent person can fail to 


* This, it is true, leaves far more to the “innate goodness of the 
human heart” than is usually left nowadays, Yet on that good- 
ness have been founded the great hopes of humankind, and in that 
goodness the believer in the potency of the spirit must ultimately 
trust. 


POSTSCRIPT 147 


realize the intimate relation in which he stands to 
others. On the contrary, he will feel that he is a 
member of an “infinite community of spirits, similar 
though not identical to his own.” And he will realize 
negatively that no ill of theirs can really subserve his 
gain; and positively, that the achievement of what is 
noblest in him must be wrought with due considera- 
tion for, and in true harmony with, the right of others 
to similar achievement. 

The second criticism with which I would deal, is 
that in presenting the purpose of religion as the at- 
tempt to help men to live well, I have not added that 
it is impossible for a Jew to live well unless he live 
Jewishly,? and further that I have not defined what 
living Jewishly, or as a Jew, implies. Yet that ad- 
dition [ cannot make. 

Unfortunate it may be, yet the fact remains that 
there are literally hundreds of thousands of Amer- 
ican Jews whose life is lived in an orbit practically 
untouched by Jewish interests or activities. Jews they 
remain because their heritage is Jewish. Yet Judaism 
has failed to touch their souls. And the light of the 
spirit, as they have seen it, has not appeared to them 
(as it doubtless did to their fathers), merely as the re- 
flection of the teachings of the Synagogue. To ask 
these Jews to live a fully Jewish life, is to ask them 


2Namely, by experiencing the consciousness of identification 
with world Israel, a consciousness which ought become operant 
through communal participation in Jewish religious activities, and 
through the effort of the individual Jew to interest himself in the 
needs, the problems and the possibilities of the Jewish group, 
both within and without his own land. 


148 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


suddenly to accept as a vital part of their lives a set 
of values and beliefs which have no vital meaning 
for them. And to insist further that they cannot 
live well unless they do accept them is clearly im- 
possible. 

For such Jews have been dissociated by their up- 
bringing, by their surroundings, even by their religion 
itself, from a Jewish life.* Judaism has failed to 
move them, and yet their lives are not without spirit- 
ual gleams. It were vain to tell them that they cannot 
live well without living Jewishly, that they cannot be 
spiritually minded without being Jewishly minded. 
For they know this is not so. And their knowledge 
is based not on theory but on experience. Instead 
of reiterating that the Jew cannot live well except 
qua Jew, let Liberal Judaism face the facts as they 
are, and strive slowly, even painfully, to give the Jew 
that background of Jewishness which will eventually 
make inevitable the Jewish quality of his life. 

Finally it is alleged that the result of the suggestions 
made throughout this book (were they to be adopted) 
would be to weaken rather than to strengthen, 
to attenuate rather than to liberalize Liberal Judaism, 
and to make less rather than greater the loyalty of the 

* Conditions such as these do not, however, obtain among all 
Jews. Many Jews are possessed of backgrounds and connections 
which are so Jewish that to live well they must needs live Jewishly. 
The “ought,” as it touches their conduct in life, touches it largely 
in relation to their faith, and to their fellow Jews. For such Jews 
the further definition of living Jewishly in order to live well may 
be made. But the Jewish community of to-day, particularly that 


portion of it with which, by circumscription, this volume deals, 
consists neither wholly, nor even largely, of such Jews. 


POSTSCRIPT 149 


Jew to his faith. In reply to this I would point out 
that this is exactly what was urged against the 
founders of Liberal Judaism sixty and seventy years 
ago by the champions of orthodoxy. And in circum- 
stances very similar. For the orthodoxy of their gen- 
eration was as lifeless as is the reform of our own! 

Liberal Judaism has failed to meet the present need. + 
It has built its mighty temples, but those temples have 
become the mortuary chapels of the living faith which 
once inspired it. Liberal Judaism is no longer com- 
pelling to American Israel. Its attitude conflicts with 
the principles which men to-day feel must be the 
foundation of a real religion. These I have tried to 
outline. And if it is claimed that they will lead the 
Jew away from Judaism, I answer that Liberal Juda- 
ism has done that already! Liberal Jews are very 
little, and grow ever less, Jewish in their habits of 
mind and life. 

Yet Liberal Judaism blindly and blandly pursues 
the even tenor of its way, seemingly unconscious that 
it stands in terrible need of a reformation, a refor- 
mation whose aim will be far more than renewed loy- 
alty to the principles of the Liberal Judaism of the 
past. Rather will it search out fearlessly the vital 
needs of the Jew to-day, and seek to meet those needs. 
It is this reformation that I urge. In it may lie the sal- 
vation of Liberal Judaism, the seed of religious re- 
birth for the Jews of this land. And at all events it 
cannot lead American Israel farther from a real loy- 


150 LIBERALIZING LIBERAL JUDAISM 


alty to its faith than, under the influence of Liberal 
Judaism, it stands to-day. 

On the contrary, my earnest conviction is that 
through such reformation may come a love of 
Judaism, based not so much on empty protestations 
respecting its eternal value as on a clear understanding 
of how it may be used to ennoble the life of the 
individual Jew, and to enrich the character of the Jew- 
ish group. I would not substitute new lamps for old, 
—worthless innovations for the priceless treasures 
of the past, but, if the old lamp is to serve the new 
need, if it is to burn as a steady illuming flame, it 
must be filled again with oil; the encrustations which 
have dimmed its brightness must be removed; and 
the wick within it must be trimmed afresh. 

To this end these chapters have been written. The 
changes which must take place will not come over- 
night. Nor are the outlook and attitude suggested in 
this volume, together with their application to concrete 
problems, likely to be accepted entirely, or at once. 
They are not meant to be. In form they are neither 
full nor final. They embody rather some intimations 
of the direction in which we must move, if Liberal 
Judaism is to become once again a living, moving 
force in this generation and in the generations that 
are to come. 


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